Full text of "Weird Tales v15 n06 [1930-06]"

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•BY*

DBEUT-E

CHARD

1330

HUCiH RCy*v>n»W

$30 A DAY

Dear Mr. Cooke:

I was making: $25
a week when I en-
rolled. Now with
my own Electrical
Shop I make as
high as $30 a day.
A. J. Daurneault,
225 Worcester,
South bridsre.
Mass.

$1.50 AN HOUR

Dear Mr. Cooke:

1 had to work like
a slave for 46c an
bour before I ei
rolled. Novi,
thanks to you, Mr.
Cooke, I make
»1 .50 an hour.

G. W. Oprea,
4220 N. Meade Av.
| Chicago, 111.

BIG

*You Fellows
Who 'Want~

BIG

Getmto

NO EXTRA
COST

VyHY earn $15 or $20 or $30 a week, when
’ » in the same six days as an Electrical Ex-
pert, when so many men are earning $60 to
$100, do it easier and not work hall so hard?

Why should you remain in a small-pay, no-
future job that offers no chance for big pro-
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That’s where the big money is being made,
and always will be madei

Electricity — The Big Pay Field

Today even the ordinary Electrician — the "screw
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Money Back If Not Satisf eid

That’S what I agree to do. And back of me in this
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L. L. COOKE, Chief Instruction Engineer*
Dept. 74- A. 2150 Lawrence Ave., Chicago, Ilf*

Send me FREE and prepaid , your Bit? Book 4 'Secrets of
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f BOARD HELP YOU.

20 years' Radio Experience.
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g Am. Radio Relay League. Lieut.
V Com. U. S. N. K. Inventor and De-
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Assisting 1 him is the R. T. H
Advisory Board, composed of . men
’ prominent in the Radio Industry--
manufacturing, broadcasting, engineer-
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Radio and will help you succeed in
their field.

RADIO & TELEVISION INSTITUTE
| Dept. B5-A, 4806 St. Anthony Ct„ Chicago

RADIO & TELEVISION INSTITUTE
Dept. 65 -A, 4806 8t. Anthony Court, Chicago
Send me Free and prepaid your BIG BOOK
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Name

©ales. Service, Manufacturing, Repairing, Ship and Station Operating, Installing,
an DDeineES for yourself.

Addrei

W '4

iPL

l«~TR ASMS VOW AT HOME FOR A GOOD JOB OR A PROFITABLE

PART TIMK OR FULL TIME BUSINESS OF YOUR OWN

wu rr. x.

City ..

State, ••••«

Published monthly by the Popular Fiction Publishing Company, 2457 E. Wash-
ington Street, Indianapolis, Ind. Entered as second-class matter March 20, 1923, at
the post office at Indianapolis, Ind., under the act of March 3, 1879. Single copies, 25
cents. Subscription, $2.50 a year in the United States, $3.00 a year in Canada. English
office: Charles Lavell, 13, Serjeant’s Inn, Fleet Street, E. C. 4, London. The publishers
are not responsible for the loss of unsolicited manuscripts, although every care will be
taken of such material while in their possession. The contents of this magazine are
fuliy protected by copyright and must not be reproduced either wholly or in part without
permission from the publishers.

NOTE — All manuscripts and communications should be addressed to the publishers*
Chicago office at 840 North Michigan Avenue, Chicago, III.

FARNSWORTH WRIGHT, Editor.

Contents for June, 1930

Cover Design Hugh Rankin

Illustrating a scene in “The Moon of Skulls"

The Eyrie 724

A chat with the readers

The Worm-King Donald Wandrei 734

Verse; decoration by Hugh Rankin

The Moon of Skulls (Part 1) Robert E. Howard 736

An adventurous story of mystery and horror in the night-
mare valley of Negari — a tale of a mad people

Haunted Hands Jack Bradley 762

The hands of Tchianski the pianist were the hands of a killer
— a gruesome story of diabolism

[CONTINUED ON NEXT PAGE]

72? ~ ’ ' ^ aSC

[continued from preceding page]

The Empty Road Wallace West 762

A thrilling tale about a man who was able to remember the
future as well as the past

In the Borderland Pedro Diaz 769

A weird story of extraordinary interest and fascination — a
wholly strange tale of the electric chair

Sonnet of Death Edith Hurley 776

Verse

The Planet of Horror Wilford Allen 777

The weirdest interplanetary story ever written — a strange
horror lurked between the planets

The Last Incantation Clark Ashton Smith 783

A poetic and fanciful tale about a king who invoked the aid
of magic to summon his lost love

The Priestess of the Ivory Feet Seabury Quinn 787

An utterly strange story about a sinister love-cult and a kiss
which meant death for him ivho gave it

Across the Hall August W. Derleth 810

A brief and pathetic little tale is this, about a girl who could
not finish writing her letter

The Black Monarch (Conclusion) Paul Ernst 813

A stupendous five-part serial story of incarnate evil — a talc
of an unthinkable doom hanging over mankind

The Frog Granville S. Hoss 825

A peculiarly different story is this — about a scientist whose
weird experiments brought disaster

James Lamp E. F. Benson 829

Another fine tale by one of the best-known British writers
of occult stories

The Magic-Maker Amelia Reynolds Long 838

A peculiar little tale about a magician whose potions wrought
strange magic

Weird Story Reprint:

The Rats in the Walls H. P. Loveeraft 841

A story of cosmic horror, reprinted by popular request from
WEIRD TALES of six years ago

The Crow Lida Wilson Turner 856

Verse

For Advertising Rates in WEIRD TATJCS Apply Direct to

WEIRD TALES

Western Advertising: Office* Eastern Advertising: Office:

HARLEY L. WARD, ENC., Mgr. GEORGE W. 8TKAKNS, Mgr.

360 N. Michigan Ave. Flatiron Building

Chicago, III. New York, N, Y.

Phone, Central 6269 Phone, Algonquin 8328

jETTER from Bernard Austin Dwyer, of Kingston, New York, is so

interesting that we quote it in full: “Having yesterday purchased —

"*■ as soon as it was out — and last night read the most of Weird Tales, I
feel impelled to offer a few random ideas and criticisms.

“Weird Tales is to me ‘the magazine irresistible,’ never being on the
stalls more than a day before I have it. The well-known — and well-loved — red
cover is something that I can not pass by. The magazine offers an excellent
evening’s entertainment. Nearly all of the stories are good — not Lovecraft, of
course, but one can not expect all to equal this giant of literary fantasy. Love-
craft, apart from the unguessed, startling originality of his climaxes, has a
quality of tone, a sheer, eery atmosphere of his own, that is at once inimitable
and unapproachable. When one reads Lovecraft, one enters into a dream-world
in all verity — one tiptoes timidly amid a million shadowy horrors— beastly
phantoms of an unguessed midnight potency. There the evil charms and'
machinations of the Other Gods in the Elder World surround one, and one
shudders at the mystic horrors hidden behind the snowy peaks of unknown
Kadath in the cold waste, or peering filmy-eyed from beneath the aged and
rotting gambrel roofs of archaic Arkliam or Kingsport cottages. No — they
can’t all equal Lovecraft! — but because the sun shines supreme, one doesn’t
deny light to the lesser luminaries.

“For instance, Henry S. Whitehead is a real artist — though I didn’t care
so much for his last story, The Shut Room — he isn’t so convincing outside of
the West Indies. But I have greatly enjoyed his stories of those islands — they
have truly artistic handling and color, and real atmosphere — beautiful jewelled
effects.

“Clark Ashton Smith is a genius, as great in his way as Lovecraft, a real
fantasiste, and it is a very encouraging sign that you are beginning to print
his work regularly. I feel sure that many readers of the magazine are capable
of appreciating his work.

“E. Hoffmann Price is also an artist — his story about the Oriental rug is
fine as the weavings of such a rug itself — a rare web of exotic color.

(Continued on page 726)

724

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A new invention called trie Whirlwind is actually saving millions of gallons of gasoline for
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disappearance of carbon.

The marvelous thing about this
Whirlwind is that it works as
well on all makes of cars. Re-
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Lincolns and they are all equal-
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FITS ALL CARS

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you an idea of the gaso-
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passed thru the Whirl-
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and carbon formation.

This is an illustration

of the gasoline before it
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.... .... hirl -

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Check here if you are interested in full or part
I time salesman position.

Kindly mention this magazine when answering advertisements

726

WEIRD TALES

(Continued from page 724)

1 ‘ Edmond Hamilton is a good pseudo-scientific thriller, always guarantee-
ing a half-hour's entertainment. He has vastly improved since writing Th»
Monster God of Mamurth.

“Robert E. Howard is not bad. The Dream Snake was a wonderful piece
of sinister moonlight painting, and Wolfshead was about as good. He has
written many fine tales since these two, but they are my favorites.

“Seabury Quinn is always good for an hour’s pastime. I can't see where
so many get their ideas from who declare him supreme. If he wrote such
stories as The Phantom Farmhouse , I would agree, but not with the present
stuff he gets out. Much of the praise of him is undoubtedly mere parrot-talk
— people repeating what they hear others say, without knowledge or dis-
crimination. He is* to me, just a good thrill-concoeter, neither more nor less,
and a good craftsman, handling well his effects. His yarns are always inter-
esting, and usually more or less unpredictable. I think they get better as time
goes on. One thing, however, I miss — de Grandin ’s one-time Gallicisms — his
French bulls, so to speak. These used to be really laughable, startling ; such
as a Frenchman might make when struggling with English. Now, his mistakes
— when he remembers to make them — are mechanical, artificial, labored and
^unconvincing. But that does not do away with the fact that the stories them-
selves are most fascinating, and I read every one that comes out.

“Now, a word about the illustrations. Harold Markham, writing in the
current Eyrie, is right about the cower designs. The work is technically good —
but the weird is conspicuous by its absence, and the eovers remind one of Paris
Nights, or an advertisement for Ziegf eld’s Follies. Raw and rank sex-appeal,
trite and obvious ; always the inevitable naked woman, and the human, or h^lf-
human, beast gloating over her. That has been the motif for over a year. It
may be necessary in order to sell the magazine — probably the mind of the
general public runs mostly along such lines. This applies to the illustrations,
too, which are seldom weird, and usually embody the same obviously flaunted
nudity. Not that I have the least objection to the nude, in its place. I have
handled it a great deal myself in my own pictorial work, and know that it
may be made — as for example in Beardsley — a very effective part of a weird
and sinister unit. But that is not the ease in the drawings I have referred to.
Rankin is a good — an excellent — anatomist, and I have seen some fine work of
his. His eharcoal originals may be splendid, but they lose too much in, repro-
duction on the rough paper of the magazine. I have seen such good work, and
such poor work, by Rankm, that they didn’t seem to come from the same man.
His present cover has some good points — the green color, the figure of the
crouching evil priest, and the outstretched, dressing-gowned arm of de Gran-
din, holding the sacred ikon. This last is very effective and dramatic — in fact,
the arm, and its symbolism, are the best part of the picture.

“Doak is sometimes terrible — sometimes very good. He rightly uses pen
and ink technique; eharcoal and half-tone work are not adapted to the paper

( Continued on page 729)

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My Name

Address-

magazine when answering »etv©filse»e»te

.. and his music held them spellbound

E THEL’S house party was at
its height — when suddenly
there came an ominous
knocking at the door. Ethel ran
to open it and — there stood Po-
lice Officer Kane.

“I want to see the man of the house,"
thundered Kane.

"I'm Borry." stammered Ethel nerv-
ously, “but my fattier is not at home."

"Well, what's going on in here
anyway ?" continued the officer stern-
ly. “Everyouo on the block is com-
plainin' of the noise. I’ve a good
mind to airost the lot of you."

Ethel was mortified — what a dis-
grace 1

"Oh, please." pleaded Ethel, please
don't do anything like that."

Then Kane burst out laughing.
"Don't worry, lassie — you were all
havin' such a fine time I couldn't help
droppin' In," lie explained.

"Oh," sighed Ethel, "how you
frightened me. Won't you join us?"

they all shouted as the last notes of that
snappy march song died away. Kane then
started that stirring old soldier song, “On the
Itoad to Mandalay," following it with
song hits from the latest shows.

“Wen," he laughed, as they
finally let him get up from
the piano, "I'll have to
be on my way now."

“Thank you far
your lovely music,"

Kane Joins the Party

"Ha," laughed Kane, as the Vic-
trola started again, “why must you
play that canned music —
can't any of you play thia
beautiful piano? Sure, I'd
like to give you a tune
myself."

"I dare you to play for
us," shouted Ted Strong.

"I'm afraid I'll have to
be goin'," stammered Kane,
embarrassed.

“Mr. Kane, I think you
might play for me after
the fright you gave me,"
smiled Ethel.

"Well, b'gorry. maybe
I will," agreed the officer.

And as he sat down at the

S lano everyone laughed.

ait the noise stopped when
be struck the first rollick-
ing notes of the famous
"Song of the Vagabonds."

"More — more." "That's
£ r e a t — play another/*

said Ethel. "You must be playing a good
many years?"

"Sure and I haven't been playin' long at all/*
Then the Questions came thick and fast : "How
did you ever learn so quick-
ly?" "When do you find time
to practice?" "Who was
your teacher?"

Kane Tells
His Story

"Well, to tell you the
truth, I had no teacher.
I've always loved music but
I couldn't take regular les-
sons on account of my du-
ties as a policoman. Then
one evenin' I saw a U. S.
School of Music advertise-
ment, tellin’ of a new way of
learnin* to play. I didn't
believe it myself but I sent
for their Free Demonstra-
tion Lesson that showed me
how easy it was, so I wrote
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This is not the story of just one
Isolated case. Over half a million people
have learned to play by this simple
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You teach yourself — right at home—
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Free Booklet and
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To prove how practical this course
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Please send me your free book,
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with introduction by Dr. Frank Crane,
Free Demonstration Lesson and par-
ticulars of your easy payment plan. I
ara interested in the following course:
Have You

Instrument ?

Name

Address

City State.

Kindly mention this magazine when answering -advertisements

WEIRD TALES

729

(Continued from page 726)
of the magazine — and at times he gets
peculiar, weird effects ; in the heading
to Suzanne, for instance, and The
Shut Room, both in this issue. The
highwayman’s pistol should be longer
and heavier — horse-pistols, such as he
would be likely to carry, were usually
of good size — but the swampy woods
are fine. He also did well with Robert
E. Howard’s Rattle of Bones, and I
have seen several things of his strik-
ing the true weird note. He has possi-
bilities.

“ C. C. Senf is a perfect technician.
His pictures have usually been as
well-drawn, and as totally lacking in
every element of eery effect, as an
illustration in the Cosmopolitan Maga-
zine. But his heading to Frank Belknap
Long’s On Icy Kinarth is absolutely
different. If this isn’t imaginative
and weird, I have never seen a pic-
ture that was. The primitive man
Staring upward, and the swarming
cloud of flying phantom dragons, are
surely monstrously effective. It seems
to me the best picture you have ever
printed, and I wish the whole maga-
iine could be so illustrated. The poem
■is worthy of the picture.

In conclusion, I hope you have
.not been offended by my, at times,
■unfavorable comments. The magazine
iS,; truly, as I have said, ‘irresistible’
to me, and I never miss a copy. But
all things earthly can be improved,
and these are my honest opinions, not
intended as slams or brickbats. I
know that you like to hear your read-
ers’ true opinions, favorable and
otherwise, for it is only so that you
can estimate their reactions.

“By the way- — whatever you do,
( Continued on page 731)

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(Continued from page 729)
don ’t discard the red-bordered, -white-
lettered cover!”

E. J. Brown, of Apponaug, Rhode
Island, who signs himself “a fas-
cinated reader, ’ ’ writes to the Eyrie :
“I, have been reading Weird Tales
foir about a year and it is the only
magazine that keeps me interested.
AU your tales are interesting but I
lilp the gruesome ones best. Two
stories, The Space-Eaters and The
Cp’pper Bowl, still stick in my mind.
I hm very much in favor of reprints.”

|A letter from H. P. Stiller, of New
York City, says : “I have been a
reader of your magazine from the first
issue printed, something like seven
years ago, I believe. I have always
experienced a taste for the outre in
fiction, which has always been grati-
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authors undoubtedly is H. P. Love-
cijaft. Stories like The Dunwich Hor-
ror are classics and should be pre-
served for posterity. I would suggest
them offered in a book — and would
they sell ! Let me suggest that you
reprint one of Lovecraft’s early mas-
terpieces, namely: The Rats in the
Walls. I could wager that it would
get first choice in the monthly read-
era’ vote. Please let us readers know
through the Eyrie whether Mr. Love-
craft is working on a new story or not ;
he has been absent for a number of
months, and every new copy arouses
in me a forlorn hope that, perhaps,
your pre-showing for the month
ahead contains his name. I’m still
hoping! By the way, my choice for
April’s best story is Whitehead’s The
Shut Room.” [We are as anxious to
publish new Lovecraft stories as you
(Continued on page 732)

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732

WEIRD TALES

( Continued from page 731)

are to read them. Mr. Lovecraft has promised us some new thrillers for the
near future. — The Edit ok,]

Writes Nelson Williams, of St. Charles, Illinois: “Your best contributor
is Seabury Quinn. No doubt he is a medical doctor, as is evidenced by some of
the grisly surgeries performed by his fiction character, Dr. Jules de Grandin.
Robert E. Howard is superb. Keep him clacking that typewriter. Otis Adelbert
Kline is astounding. What an imagination that man has! Edmond Hamilton
ranks as a close second to Kline, in weird science literature. I should like to
see more stories of Cornwall by Dr. David H. Keller. ’ ’

“I have been a reader of Weikd Tales since almost the first number,’’
writes Mrs. H. Snyder, of Lake Wales, Florida, “and have never missed one
since, and it certainly is the only magazine of which I can say as much. I
think the great success of Weird Tales must be due to the fact that it is the
only magazine of its kind. Others may follow, but none will ever attain such
popularity. In my opinion, two of the outstanding stories printed in the past
have been The Space-Eaters by Frank Belknap Long, Jr., and The Dunwich
Horror by Lovecraft I am getting a great thrill out of The Black Monarch,
and Jules de Grandin in Drums of Damhallah is as delightful as usual. Success
to your magazine — may it never die. ’ ’

Readers, what is your favorite story in this issue of Weird Tales f It will
help us keep the magazine in accordance with your wishes if you will let us
know. The most popular story in the April issue, as shown by your votes, was
The Plant Revolt by Edmond Hamilton. The Dust of Egypt by Seabury Quinn
took second place.

MY FAVORITE STORIES IN THE JUNE WEIRD TALES ARE:

Story

Remarks

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I do not like the

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Why!

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i r

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1 Crimson Poppies — Dr. Howes evolves
a fiendish plot to inherit the wealth
of a lunatic millionaire.

2 Buff — A cub reporter and a death
mystery — a story that works up to
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3 The Triangle of Terror — A goosefleeh
story that will eend the cold shivers
up your spine.

4 The Valley of Missing Men — Read how
Parkinson discovered this baffling
mystery — a story pulsating with
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6 The Sign of the Toad — An eery de-
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tions and mysterious deaths.

6 The Mystery at Ragle Lodge— Soul -
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action— You will move in the land of
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7 The Web — This tale threads the sin-
ister net that was torn asunder by
the murder of James Blake.

8 The Glass Eye — The convict worked
out a clever and diabolical scheme,
but a dead man’s eye betrayed him.

9 Ten Dangerous Hours — Bristling with
excitement and full of surprises — a
remarkable story with thrills galore.

10 Disappearing Ballets — Crammed with
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11 The Green-Eyed Monster — A thrilling
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and desperate fighting.

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b^POCMALP W A0JPR61

In a fabulous land, in a fabulous time,

There lived and there ruled on a crumbling throne
A worm that was born of the deep sea-slime,

Whose white fat folds were covered with grime,

And it ruled alone.

Not a creature lived in all the land,

And the little red eyes in the serpent ’s head
Saw only a realm of wet black sand
And the slimy things of the slimy dead
Of its cold sea-tomb.

Not a thing disputed the lordly worm
Where it lived and ruled in the endless gloom,

Nor ever a hand caressed its fat;

Through its foul dead realm were it ever to squirm,
All it would find was a plump drowned rat
And dead men’s bones.

As deathless and old as the deathless sea,

As deathless as ever a worm can be,

And the worm is king for eternity,

It reigned on its multiple thrones.

But the musty tale can never be told
Of the realm that rose from stale sea-waves,

Of the white worm-king and the fat white fold,

Of the pulpy head that never grows old,

For the tale is the grave's.

Next Month

A superb array of gripping weircl masterpieces is scheduled for the July issue of
Weird Tales, on sale June 1.

The Bride o£ Dewer

by Seabury Quinn

Old Dewer, goblin huntsman of the North, rides through this,
the weirdest story yet written about Jules de Grandin.

Earthworms oi
Karma

by Lon Dexter

An interplanetary story that is different — -
an amazing narrative of a trip to Mars and the
utterly strange adventures that befell the
voyagers.

Dead Man’s Fingers

by Harold Simpson

As the woman fled through the night, she
knew that her husband would hold her in death
as he had done in life.

The Bagheeta

by Val Lewton

A fascinating tale of the Caucasus, of a
curious superstition, and the search for the
were-leoparri that menaced the community with
the destruction of its young men.

The Death Lord

by Edmond Hamilton

All life in Chicago was blotted out in an hour
by a plague — then in Philadelphia. The start-
ling story of a world domed by a bacteriologist's
lust for power.

The Mask Druid

by Frank Belknap Long, Jr.

A short tale that compresses a world of
cosmic horror in its few pages.

The Moon o£ Skulls

by Robert E. Howard

A mighty picture of the grim glories and
hideous splendors of Atlantis is painted in the
concluding installment of this powerful story.

The Haunted Wood
©£ Adoure

by Elliot O 'Donnell

An unusual ghost-story is this terrifying experience of a French
executioner, for it was the ghost of the living and not of the
dead that tormented him.

These arc Borne of the super-excellent stories that will appear in the July issue

of Weird Tales.

July Issue on Sale June 1

Subscription Rates: $2.50' a year in U. S. or possessions; Canadian $3.60; Foreign $3.60.
Weird Tales, 840 N. Michigan Ave. Chicago, 111.

The'll

IIMERY^R

H«W4KI

“The wise men know what wicked
Are written on the sky)

They trim sad lamps, they touch sad strings
Hearing the heavy purple wings,

Where the forgotten Seraph kings
Still plot how God shall die.”

— Chesterton.

1. A Man Comes Seeking

GREAT black shadow lay
across the land, cleaving the
red flame of the sunset. To
man who toiled up the jungle

the

736

trail it loomed like a symbol of death
and horror, a menace brooding and
terrible, like the shadow of a stealthy
assassin flung upon some candle-lit
wall.

Yet it was only the shadow of the
great crag which reared up in front
of him, the first outpost of the grim
foothills which were his goal. He
halted a moment at its foot, staring
upward where it rose blackly limned

against the dying sun. He could
have sworn that he caught the hint
•f a movement at the top, as he
stared, hand shielding his eyes, but
the fading glare dazzled him and he
could not be sure. Was it a man who
darted to cover? A man, or ?

He shrugged his shoulders and fell
to examining the rough trail which
led up and over the brow of the crag.
At first glance it seemed that only
a mountain goat could scale it, but
closer investigation showed numbers
of fingerholds drilled into the solid
rock. It would be a task to try his
powers to the utmost but he had not
come a thousand miles to turn back
now.

He dropped the large pouch he
wore at his shoulder, and laid down
the clumsy musket, retaining only
his long rapier, dagger, and one of
his pistols. These he strapped be-
hind him, and without a backward
glance <iver' the darkening trail he

had come, he started the long ascent.
He was a tall man, long-armed and
iron-muscled, yet again and again he
was forced to halt in his upward
climb and rest for a moment, cling-
ing like an ant to the precipitous
face of the cliff. Night fell swiftly
and the crag above him was a
shadowy blur in which he was forced
to feel with his fingers, blindly, for
the holes which served him as pre-
carious ladder. Below him, the night
noises of the tropical jungle broke
forth, yet it appeared to him that
even these sounds were subdued and
hushed as though the great black
hills looming above threw a spell of
silence and fear even over the jungle
creatures.

On up he struggled, and now to
make his way harder, the cliff bulged
outward near its summit and the
strain on nerve and muscle became
heart-breaking. Time and again a
hold slipped and he escaped falling

WEIRD TALES

7 Lid

by a hair’s breadth. But every fiber
in his lean hard body was perfectly
co-ordinated, and his fingers were
like steel talons with the grip of a
vise. His progress grew slower and
slower but on he went until at last
he saw the cliff’s brow splitting the
stars a scant twenty feet above him.

And even as he looked, a vague
bulk heaved into view, toppled on
the edge and hurtled down toward
him with a great rush of air about
it. Flesh crawling, he flattened him-
self against the cliff’s face and felt
a heavy blow against his shoulder,
only a glancing blow, but even so it
nearly tore him from his hold, and
as he fought desperately to right
himself, he heard a reverberating
crash among the rocks far below.
Cold sweat beading his brow, he
looked up. Who — or what — had
shoved that boulder over the cliff
edge? He was brave, as the bones
on many a battlefield could testify,
but the thought of dying like a
sheep, helpless and with no chance
of resistance, turned his blood cold.

Then a wave of fury supplanted
his fear and he renewed his climb
with reckless speed. The expected
second boulder did not come, how-
ever, and no living thing met his
sight as he clambered up over the
edge and leaped erect, sword flashing
from its scabbard.

He stood upon a sort of plateau
which debouched into a very broken
hilly country some half mile to the
west. The crag he had just mounted
jutted out from the rest of the
heights like a sullen promontory,
looming above the sea of waving foli-
age below, now dark and mysterious
in the tropic night.

Silence ruled here in absolute sov-
ereignty. No breeze stirred the som-
ber depths below, and no footfall
rustled amid the stunted bushes
which cloaked the plateau, yet that
boulder which had almost hurled the
climber to his death- had not fallen
by chance. What beings moved

among these grim hills? The trop-
ical darkness fell about the lone
wanderer like a heavy veil through
which the yellow stars blinked evilly.
The steams of the rotting jungle
vegetation floated up to him as tan-
gible as a thick fog, and making a
wry face he strode away from the
cliff, heading boldly across the pla-
teau, sword in one hand and pistol in
the other.

There was an uncomfortable feel-
ing of being watched in the very air.
The silence remained unbroken save
for the soft swishing that marked
the stranger’s cat-like tread through
the tall upland grass, yet the man
sensed that living things glided be-
fore and behind him and on each side.
Whether man or beast trailed him he
knew not, nor did he care over-much,
for he was prepared to fight human
or devil who barred his way. Oc-
casionally he halted and glanced
challengingly about him, but nothing
met his eye except the shrubs which
crouched like short dark ghosts
about his trail, blended and blurred
in the thick hot darkness through
which the very stars seemed to
struggle, redly.

At last he came to the place where
the plateau broke into the higher
slopes and there he saw a clump of
trees blocked out solidly in the lesser
shadows. He approached warily,
then halted as his gaze, growing
somewhat accustomed to the dark-
ness, made out a vague form among
the somber trunks which was not a
part of them. He hesitated. The
figure neither advanced nor fled. A
dim form of silent menace, it lurked
as if in wait. A brooding horror
hung over that still cluster of trees.

npHE stranger advanced warily,
-*■ blade extended. Closer. Strain-
ing his eyes for some hint of threat-
ening motion. He decided that the
figure was human but he was puzzled
at its lack of movement. Then the
reason became apparent— it Was the

THE MOON OF SKULLS

739

corpse of a black man that stood
among those trees, held erect by
spears through his body, nailing him
to the boles. One arm was extended
in front of him, held in plaee along
a great branch by a dagger through
the wrist, the index finger straight
as if the corpse pointed stiffiy — back
along the way the stranger had
|!ome.

' The meaning was obvious; that
mute grim signpost could have but
one significance— death lay beyond.
The man who stood gazing upon
that grisly warning rarely laughed,
hut now he allowed himself the lux-
ury of a sardonic smile. A thousand
miles of land and sea— ocean travel
and jungle travel — and now they ex-
pected to turn him back with sueh
mummery — whoever they were.

He resisted the temptation to
Salute the corpse, as an action want-
ing in decorum, and pushed on bold-
ly through the grove, half expecting
an attack from the rear or an am-
bush.

\ ^Nothing of the sort occurred, how-
ever, and emerging from the trees,
found himself at the foot of a
rugged incline, the first of a series of
slopes. He strode stolidly upward
in 'ihe night, nor did he even pause
iS' reflect how unusual his actions
mu$t have appeared to a sensible
npi. The average man would have
camped at the foot of the crag and
whited for morning before even at-
^enipting to scale the cliffs. But this
was no ordinary man. Once his ob-
jective was in sight, he followed the
Straightest line to it, without a
thought' of obstacles, whether day or
night. What was to be done, must
be done. He had reached the out-
poet's of the kingdom of fear at dusk,
and invading its inmost recesses by
night seemed to follow as a matter
of course.

As he went up the boulder-strewn
slopes the moon rose, lending its air
of illusion, an<J ip its light the broken
hills ahead loomed up like the black

spires of wizards' castles. He kept
his eyes fixed on the dim trail he was
following, for he knew not when an-
other boulder might come hurtling
down the inclines. He expected an
attack of any sort and, naturally, it
was the unexpected which really
happened.

Suddenly from behind a great
rock stepped a black man; an ebony
giant in the pale moonlight, a long
spear blade gleaming silver in his
hand, his headpiece of ostrich
plumes floating above him like a
white cloud. He lifted the spear in
a ponderous salute, and spoke in the
dialect of the river-tribes :

“This is not the white man’s land.
Who is my white brother in his own
kraal and why does he come into the
Land of Skulls!”

“My name is Solomon Kane,” the
white man answered in the same
language, “I seek the vampire
queen of Negari.”

“Few seek. Fewer find. None re-
turn,” answered the other crypti-
cally. , ,,

“Will you lead me to her?”

“You bear a long dagger in your
right hand. There are no lions
here.”

“A serpent dislodged a boulder.
I thought to find snakes in the
bushes.”

The giant acknowledged this in-
terchange of subtleties with a grim
smile and a brief silence fell.

“Your life,” said the black pres-
ently, “is in my hand.”

Kane smiled thinly. “I carry the
lives of many warriors in my hand.”

The negro’s gaze traveled uncer-
tainly up and down the shimmery
length of the Englishman’s sword.
Then he shrugged his mighty shoul-
ders and let his spear point sink to
the earth.

“You bear no gifts,” said he; “but
follow me and I will lead you to the
Terrible One, the Mistress of Doom,
the Red Woman, Nakari, who rules
the land of Negari.”

WEIRD TALES

740

He stepped aside and motioned
Kane to precede him, but the English-
man, his mind on a spear-thrust in
the back, shook his head.

“Who am I that I should walk in
front of my brother? We be two
chiefs — let us walk side by side.”

In his heart Kane railed that he
should be forced to use such unsa-
vory diplomacy with a black savage,
but he showed no sign. The giant
bowed with a certain barbaric maj-
esty and together they went up the
hill trail, unspeaking. Kane was
aware that men were stepping from
hiding-places and falling in behind
them, and a surreptitious glance
over his shoulder showed him some
two score black warriors trailing out
behind them in two wedge-shaped
lines. The moonlight glittered on
sleek black bodies, on waving head-
gears and long cruel spear blades.

“My brothers are like leopards,”
said Kane courteously; “they lie in
the low bushes and no eyes see them ;
they steal through the high grass
and no man hears their coming. ’ ’

The black chief acknowledged the
compliment with a courtly inclina-
tion of his lion-like head, that set the
plumes whispering.

“The mountain leopard is our
brother, oh chieftain. Our feet are
like drifting smoke but our arms are
like iron. When they strike, blood
drips red and men die.”

Kane sensed an undercurrent of
menace in the tone. There was no
actual hint of threat on which he
might base his suspicions, but the
sinister minor note was there. He
said no more for a space and the
strange band moved silently upward
in the moonlight like a cavalcade of
black specters led by a white ghost.
The trail grew steeper and more
rocky, winding in and out among
crags and gigantic boulders. Sud-
denly a great chasm opened before
them, spanned by a natural bridge
of rock, at the foot of which the
leader halted.

K ane stared at the abyss curiously.

It was some forty feet wide, and
looking down, his gaze was swal-
lowed by impenetrable blackness,
hundreds of feet deep, he knew. On
the other side rose crags dark and
forbidding.

“Here,” said the black chief, “be-
gin the true borders of Nakari’s
realm.”

Kane was aware that the warriors
were casually closing in on him.
His fingers instinctively tightened'
about the hilt of the rapier which he
had not sheathed. The air was sud-
denly supercharged with tension.

“Here, too,” the black man said,
“they who bring no gifts to Nakari —
die!”

The last word was a shriek, as if
the thought had transformed the
speaker into a maniac, and as ho
screamed it, the great black arm
went back and then forward with a
ripple of mighty muscles, and the
long spear leaped at Kane’s breast.

Only a born fighter could have
avoided that thrust. Kane’s instinc-
tive action saved his life — the great
blade grazed his ribs as he swayed
aside and returned the blow with a
flashing thrust that killed a warrior
who jostled between him and the
chief at that instant.

Spears flashed in the moonlight;
and Kane, parrying one and bending
under the thrust of another, sprang
out upon the narrow bridge where,
only one could come at him at a.
time.

None cared to be first. They stood
upon the brink and thrust at him,
crowding forward when he re-
treated, giving back when he pressed
them. Their spears were longer
than his rapier but he more than
made up for the difference and the
great odds by his scintillant skill and
the cold ferocity of his attack.

They wavered back and forth and
then suddenly a black giant leaped
from among his fellovfs and charged
out upon the bridge like a wild'

THE MOON OF SKULLS

743 }

buffalo, shoulders hunched, spear
held low, eyes gleaming with a look
not wholly sane. Kane leaped back
before the onslaught, leaped back
again, striving to avoid that stab-
bing spear and to find an opening for
his point. He sprang to one side and
found himself reeling on the edge of
the bridge with eternity gaping be-
neath him. The blacks yelled in
ravage exultation as he swayed and
fought for his balance, and the giant
on the bridge roared and plunged at
the rocking white man.

Kane parried with all his strength
— a feat few swordsman could have
accomplished, off balance as he was
— saw the cruel spear blade flash by
his cheek — felt himself falling back-
ward into the abyss. A desperate
effort, and he gripped the spear
shaft, righted himself and ran the
spearman through the body. The
blaek’s great red cavern of a mouth
spouted blood and with a dying effort
he hurled himself blindly against
his foe. Kane, with his heels over
the bridge’s edge, was unable to
a#0id him and they toppled over to-
gether, to disappear silently into the
depths below.

<So swiftly had it all happened that
the warriors stood stunned. The
giant’s roar of triumph had scarcely
died on his lips before the two were
falling into the darkness. Now the
rest of the negroes came out on the
bridge to peer down curiously, but
no sound came up from the dark
void.

2. The People of the Stalking Death

,t Their gods were sadder than the sea,

•;?; Gods of a wandering will.

Who cried for blood like beasts at night
Sadly, from hill to hill.”

— Chesterton .

A s kane fell he followed his fight-
ing instinct, twisting in midair
so that when he struck, were it ten
or a thousand feet below, he would
land on top of the man who fell with
him.

The end came suddenly — much 1 '
more suddenly than the Englishman
had thought for. He lay half stunned
for an instant, then looking up,
saw dimly the narrow bridge band-
ing the sky above him, and the forms
of the warriors, limned in the moon-
light and grotesquely foreshortened
as they leaned over the edge. He
lay still, knowing that the beams of
the moon did not pierce the deeps in
which he was hidden, and that to
those watchers he was invisible.
Then when they vanished from view
he began to review his present
plight. The black man was dead,
and only for the fact that his corpse
had cushioned the fall, Kane would
have been dead likewise, for they had
fallen a considerable distance. As
it was, the white man was stiff and
bruised.

He drew his sword from the ne-
gro’s body, thankful that it had not
been broken, and began to grope
about in the darkness. His hand en-
countered the edge of what seemed
a cliff,_ He had thought that he was
on the bottom of the chasm and that
its impression of great depth had
been a delusion, but now he decided
that he had fallen on a ledge, part
of the way down. He dropped a
small stone over the side, and after
what seemed a very long time he
heard the faint sound of its striking
far below.

Somewhat at a loss as to how to
proceed, he drew flint and steel from
his belt and struck them to some
tinder, warily shielding the light
with his hands. The faint illumina-
tion showed a large ledge jutting out
from the side of the cliff, that is, the
side next the hills, to which he had
been attempting to cross. He had
fallen close to the edge and it was
only by the narrowest margin that
he had escaped sliding off it, not
knowing his position.

Crouching there, his eyes seeking
to accustom themselves to the abys-
mal gloom, he made out what seemed

742

WEIRD TALES

to be a darker shadow in the shadows
of the wall. On closer examination
he found it to be an opening large
enough to admit his body standing
erect. A cavern, lie assumed, and
though its appearance was dark and
forbidding in the extreme, he en-
tered, groping his way when the
tinder burned out.

Where it led to, he naturally had
no idea, but any action was prefer-
able to sitting still until the moun-
tain vultures plucked his bones. For
a long way the cave floor tilted up-
ward — solid rock beneath his feet —
and Kane made his way with some
difficulty up the rather steep slant,
slipping and sliding now and then.
The cavern seemed a large one, for
at no time after entering it could he
touch the roof, nor could he, with a
hand on one wall, reach the other.

At last the floor became level and
Kane sensed that the cave was much
larger there. The air seemed better,
though the darkness was just as im-
penetrable. Suddenly he stopped
dead in his tracks. From somewhere
in front of him there came a strange
indescribable rustling. Without
warning something smote him in the
face and slashed wildly. All about
him sounded the eery murmurings of
many small wings and suddenly
Kane smiled crookedly, amused, re-
lieved and chagrined. Bats, of course.
The cave was swarming with them.
Still it was a shaky experience, and as
he went on and the wings whispered
through the vasty emptiness of the
great cavern, Kane’s Puritan mind
found space to dally with a bizarre
thought — had he wandered into Hell
by some strange means, and were
these in truth bats, or were they lost
souls winging through everlasting
night?

Then, thought Solomon Kane, I will
soon confront Satan himself — and
even as he thought this, his nostrils
were assailed by a horrid scent fetid
and repellent. The scent grew as he
went slowly on, and Kane swore

softly, though he was not a profane
man. He sensed that the smell be-
tokened some hidden threat, some un-
seen malevolence, inhuman and
deathly, and his somber mind sprang
at supernatural conclusions. How-
ever, he felt perfect confidence in his
ability to cope with any fiend or
demon, armored as he was in un-
shakable faith of creed and the
knowledge of the rightness of his
cause.

What followed happened suddenly.
He was groping his way along when
in front of him two narrow yellow
eyes leaped up in the darkness — eyes
that were cold and expressionless, too
hideously close-set for human eyes and
too high for any four-legged beast.
What horror had thus reared itself
up in front of him ?

This is Satan, thought Kane as the
eyes swayed above him, and the next
instant he was battling for his life
with the darkness that seemed to have
taken tangible form and thrown
itself about his body and limbs in
great slimy coils. Those coils lapped
liis sword arm and rendered it use-
less; with the other hand he groped;
for dagger or pistol, flesh crawling as:
his fingers slipped from slick scales,
while the hissing of the monster filled
the cavern with a eold pa an of terror.

There in the black dark to the
accompaniment of the bats’ leathery
rustlings, Kane fought like a rat in
the grip of a mouse-snake, and he
could feel his ribs giving and his
breath going before liis frantic left
hand closed on his dagger hilt.

Then with a volcanic twist and
wrench of his steel-thewed body he
tore his left arm partly free and
plunged the keen blade again and
again to the hilt in the sinuous writh-
ing terror which enveloped him, feel-
ing at last the quivering coils loosen
and slide from his limbs to lie about
his feet like huge cables.

The mighty serpent lashed wildly in
its death struggles, and Kane, avoid-
ing its bone-shattering blows, reeled

THE MOON OF SKULLS

743

away in the darkness, laboring for
breath. If his antagonist had not been
Satan himself, it had been Satan’s
nearest earthly satellite, thought Solo-
mon, hoping devoutly that he would
not be called upon to battle another
in the darkness there.

I t seemed to him that he had been
walking through the blackness for
ages and he began to wonder if there
were any end to the cave when a glim-
mer of light pierced the darkness. He
thought it to be an outer entrance a
great way off, and started forward
swiftly, but to his astonishment, he
brought up short against a blank wall
after taking a few strides. Then he
perceived that the light came through
a narrow crack in the wall, and feel-
ing over this wall he found it to be
of different material from the rest of
the cave, consisting, apparently, of
regular blocks of stone joined together
with mortar of some sort — an indubit-
ably man-built wall.

The light streamed between two of
these stones, where the mortar had
crumbled away. Kane ran his hands
over the surface with an interest
beyond his present needs. The work
seemed very old and very much supe-
rior to what might be expected of a
tribe of ignorant negroes.

He felt the thrill of the explorer
and discoverer. Certainly no white
man had ever seen this place and lived
to tell of it, for when he had landed
on the dank West Coast some months
before, preparing to plunge into the
interior, he had had no hint of such a
country as this. The few white men
who knew anything at all of Africa
with whom he had talked, had never
even mentioned the Land of Skulls or
the she-fiend who ruled it.

Kane thrust against the wall cau-
tiously. The structure seemed weak-
ened from age — a vigorous shove and
it gave perceptibly. He hurled him-
self against it with all his weight and
a whole section ; of wall gave way with
a crash, .precipitating him into a dim-

ly lighted corridor amid a heap of
stone, dust and mortar.

He sprang up and looked about, ex-
pecting the noise to bring a horde
of wild spearmen. Utter silence
reigned. The corridor in which he
now stood was much like a long nar-
row cave itself, save that it was the
work of man. It was several feet wide
and the roof was many feet above his
head. Dust lay ankle-deep on the floor
as if no foot had trod there for count-
less centuries, and the dim light, Kane
decided, filtered in somehow through
the roof or ceiling, for nowhere did
he see any doors or windows. At last
he decided the source was the ceiling
itself, which was of a peculiar phos-
phorescent quality.

He set off down the corridor, feel-
ing uncomfortably like a gray ghost
moving along the gray halls of death
and decay. The evident antiquity of
his surroundings depressed him, mak-
ing him sense vaguely the fleeting
and futile existence of mankind. That
he was now on top of the earth he be-
lieved, since light of a sort came in,
but where, he could not even offer a
conjecture. This was a land of en-
chantment — a land of horror and fear-
ful mysteries, the jungle and river
natives had said, and he had gotten
whispered hints of its terrors ever
since he had set his back to the Slave
Coast and ventured into the hinter-
lands alone. v

Now and then he caught a low in-
distinct murmur which seemed to
come through one of the walls, and he
at last came to the conclusion that he
had stumbled onto a secret passage in
some castle or house. The natives
who had dared speak to him of Negari,
had whispered of a ju-ju city built of
stone, set high amid the grim black
crags of the fetish hills.

Then, thought Kane, it may be that
I have blundered upon the very thing
I sought and am in the midst of that
city of terror. He halted, and choosing
a place at random, began to loosen
the mortar with his dagger. As he

WEIRD TALES

worked he again heard that low mar-
*aur, increasing in volume as he "bored
through the waH, and presently the
point pierced through, and looking
through the aperture it had made, he
saw a strange and fantastic scene.

He was looking into a great cham -
ber, whose walls and floors were of
Stone, and whose mighty roof was up-
keld by gigantic stone columns,
strangely carved. Ranks of feathered
Mack warriors lined the walls and a
double column of them stood like
Statues before a throne set between
two stone dragons which were larger
than elephants. These mem he recog-
nized, by their bearing and general
appearance, to be tribesmen of the
warriors he had fought at the chasm.
Put his gaze was .drawn irresistibly
to the great, grotesquely ornamented
throne. There, dwarfed by the pon-
derous splendor about her, n woman
seclined. A black woman she was,
young and of a tigerish comeliness
She was naked except for a beplumed
Helmet, armbands, anklets and a girdle
uf colored ostrieh feathers and she
sprawled upon the silken cushions
with her limbs thrown about in
sfoiuptuous abandon.

Even at that distance Kane could
make out that her features were regal
yet barbaric, haughty and imperious,
yet sensual, and with a touch of ruth-
mss cruelty about the curl of her full
<jed lips. Kane felt his pulse quicken.
This could be no other than die whose
primes had become almost mythical —
Nakari of Negari, demon queen of a
demon city, whose monstrous lust for
Hood had set half a continent shiver-
dig. At least she seemed human
enough ; the tales of the fearful river
tubes had lent her a supernatural
aspect. Kane had half expected to see
i loathsome semi-human monster out
gf some past and demoniacal age.

The Englishman gazed, fascinated
Hough repelled. Not even in the
courts of Europe had he seen such
yandeur. The chamber and all its
accouterments, from the earven ser-

pents twined about the bases of the
pillars to the dimly seen dragons on
the shadowy ceiling, were fashioned
on a gigantic scale. The splendor was
awesome — elephantine — inhumanly
oversized, and almost numbing to the
mind which sought to measure and
conceive the magnitude thereof. To
Kane it seemed that these things must
have been the work of gods rather
than men, for this chamber alone
would dwarf most of the castles he
had known in Europe.

The black people who thronged that
mighty room seemed grotesquely in-
congruous. They no more suited their
surroundings than a band of monkeys
would have seemed at home in the
council chambers of the English king.
As Kane realized this the sinister im-
portance of Queen Nakari dwindled.
Sprawled on that august throne in the
midst of the terrifie glory of another
age, she seemed to assume her true
proportions — a spoiled, petulant child
engaged in a game of make-believe
and using for her sport a toy dis-
carded by her elders. And at the same
time a thought entered Kane ’s mind —
who were these elders ?

Still the child could become deadly
in her game, as the Englishman soon
saw.

A tall massive black came through
the ranks fronting the throne, and
after prostrating himself four times
before it, remained on his knees,
evidently waiting permission to speak.
The queen’s air of lazy indifference
fell from her and she straightened
with a quick lithe motion that re-
minded Kane of a leopardess spring-
ing erect. She spoke, and the words
came faintly to him as he strained his
faculties to hear. She spoke in a
language very similar to that of the
river tribes.

“Speak!”

“Great and Terrible One,” said the
kneeling warrior, and Kane recog-
nized him as the chief who had first
accosted him on the plateau — the chief
of the guards on the cliffs, “let not

THE MOON OP SKULLS

745

the fire of your fury consume your
dare."

The young woman's eyes narrowed
viciously.

'‘You know why you were sum-
moned, son of a vulture ? ’ ’

“Fire of Beauty, the stranger
brought no gifts."

“No gifts?" die spat out the words.
“"What have I to do with gifts? I
bade you slay all black men who came
empty-handed — did I tell you to slay
white men?"

“Gazelle of Negari, he came climb-
ing the crags in the night like an
assassin, with a dagger as long as a
man ’s arm in his hand. The boulder
we hurled down missed him, and we
met him upon the plateau and took
him to the Bridge-Across-the-Sky,
where, as is the custom, we thought
to slay him ; for it was your word that
you were weary of men who came
wooing you."

“Black men, fool," she snarled;
“black men!"

“Your slave did not know. Queen
-of Beauty. The white man fought
like a mountain leopard. Two men
he slew and fell with the last one into
the chasm, and so he perished, Star of
Negari.”

“Aye," the queen's tone was venom-
°ous, “the first white man who ever
came to Negari ! One who might have
— rise, fool!”

The man got to his feet,

>''■■■ “Mighty Lioness, might not this

one have come seeking "

' The sentence was never completed.
Even as he straightened, Nakari made
a swift gesture with her band. Two
warriors plunged from the silent
ranks and two spears crossed in the
chief ’s body before he could turn. A
gurgling scream burst from his lips,
blood spurted high in the air and the
corpse fell flatly at the foot of the
great throne.

The ranks never wavered, but
Kane caught the sidelong flash of
strangely red eyes and the invol-
untary wetting of thick lips. Nakari

had half risen as the spears flashed,
and now she sank back, an expression
of cruel satisfaction on her beautiful
face and a strange brooding gleam in
her scintillant eyes.

An indifferent wave of her hand
and the corpse was dragged away by
the heels, the dead arms trailing
limply in the wide smear of blood left
by the passage of the body. Kane
could see other wide stains crossing
the stone floor, some almost indistinct,
others less dim. How many wild
scenes of blood and cruel frenzy had
the great stone throne-dragons looked
upon with their carven eyes ?

He did not doubt, now, the tales
told him by the river tribes. These
people were bred in rapine and hor-
ror. Their prowess had burst their
brains. They lived, like some terrible
beast, only to destroy. There were
strange gleams behind their eyes
which at times lit those eyes with up-
leaping flames and shadows of Hell.
What had the river tribes said of
these mountain people who had rav-
aged them for countless centuries?
That they were henchmen t>f death,
who stalked among them, and whom
they worshipped.

Still the thought hovered in Kane’s
mind as he watched — who built this
place, and why were negroes evidently
in possession? He knew this was the
work of a higher race. No blade tribe
had ever reached such a stage of cul-
ture as evidenced by these carvings.
Yet the river tribes had spoken of no
other men than those upon which he
now looked.

T he Englishman tore himself away
from the fascination of the bar-
baric scene with an effort. He had no
time to waste ; as long as they thought
him dead, he had more chance of elud-
ing possible guards and seeking what
he had come to find. He turned and
set off down the dim corridor. No
plan of action offered itself to his
mind and one direction was as good
as another. The passage did not run

746

WEIRD TALES

straight; it turned and twisted, fol-
lowing the line of the walls, Kane
supposed, and found time to wonder
at the evident enormous thickness of
those walls. He expected at any mo-
ment to meet some guard or slave,
but as the corridors continued to
stretch empty before him, with the
dusty floors unmarked by any foot-
print., he decided that either the pas-
sages were unknown to the people of
Negari or else for some reason were
never used.

He kept a close lookout for secret
doors, and at last found one, made fast
on the inner side with a rusty bolt set
in a groove of the wall. This he
manipulated cautiously, and presently
with a creaking which seemed ter-
rifically loud in the stillness the door
swung inward. Looking out he saw
no one, and stepping warily through
the opening, he drew the door to
behind him, noting that it assumed
the part of a fantastic picture painted
on the wall. He scraped a mark with
his dagger at the point where he be-
lieved the hidden spring to be on the
outer side, for he knew not when he
might need to use the passage again.

He was in a great hall, through
which ran a maze of giant pillars
much like those of the throne cham-
ber. Among them he felt like a child
in some great forest, yet they gave
him some slight sense of security since
he believed that, gliding among them
like a ghost through a jungle, he could
elude the black people in spite of their
craft.

He set off, choosing his direction at
random and going carefully. Once he
heard a mutter of voices, and leaping
upon the base of a column, clung
there while two black women passed
directly beneath him, but besides these
he encountered no one. It was an un-
canny sensation, passing through this
vast hall which seemed empty of
human life, but in some other part of
which Kane knew there might be
throngs of people, hidden from sight
by the pillars.

At last, after what seemed an
eternity of following these monstrous
mazes, he came upon a huge wall
which seemed to be either a side of
the hall, or a partition, and continuing
along this, he saw in front of him a
doorway before which two spearmen
stood like black statues.

Kane, peering about the comer of
a column base made out two windows
high in the wall, one on each side of
the door, and noting the ornate carv-
ings which covered the walls, deter-
mined on a desperate plan. He felt it
imperative that he should see what
lay within that room. The fact that
it was guarded suggested that the
room beyond the door was either a
treasure chamber or a dungeon, and
he felt sure that his ultimate goal
would prove to be a dungeon.

He retreated to a point out of
sight of the blacks and began to scale
the wall, using the deep carvings for
hand and foot holds. It proved even,
easier than he had hoped, and having
climbed to a point level with the win-
dows, he crawled cautiously along a
horizontal line, feeling like an ant on
a wall.

The guards far below him never
looked up, and finally he reached the
nearer window and drew himself up
over the sill. He looked down into a*
large room, empty of life, but
equipped in a manner sensuous and
barbaric. Silken couches and velvet
cushions dotted the floor in pro-
fusion and tapestries heavy with gold
work hung upon the walls. The ceil-
ing too was worked in gold.

Strangely incongruous, crude trin-
kets of ivory and ironwood, unmis-
takably negroid in workmanship,
littered the place, symbolic enough of
this strange kingdom where signs of
barbarism vied with a strange eid-
ture. The outer door was shut and in
the wall opposite was another door,
also closed.

Kane descended from the window,
sliding down the edge of a tapestry
as a sailor slides down a sail-rope,

THE MOON OF SKULLS

747

and crossed the room, his feet sinking
noiselessly into the deep fabric of the
rug which covered the floor, and
which, like all the other furnishings,
seemed ancient to the point of decay.

At the door he hesitated. To step
into the next room might be a desper-
ately hazardous thing to do; should
it prove to be filled with black men,
his escape was cut off by the spear-
men outside the other door. Still, he
was used to taking all sorts of wild
chances, and now, sword in hand, he
flung the door open with a suddenness
intended to numb with surprize for
an instant any foe who might be on
the other side.

Kane took a swift step within,
ready for anything — then halted sud-
denly, struck speechless and motion-
less for a second. He had come thou-
sands of miles in search of something
and there before him lay the object
of his search.

3. Lilith

“Lady of mystery, what is thy history?"

& — Viereck.

A couch stood in the middle of the
room and on its silken surface lay
a woman — a woman whose skin was
white and whose reddish gold hair fell
about her bare shoulders. She now
sprang erect, fright flooding her fine
gray eyes, lips parted to utter a cry
which she as suddenly checked.

“You!” she exclaimed. “How
did you ?”

Solomon Kane closed the door
behind him and came toward her, a
rare smile on his dark face.

“You remember me, do you not,
Marylin?”

The fear had already faded from
her eyes even before he spoke, to be
replaced by a look of incredible won-
der and dazed bewilderment

“Captain Kane! I can not under-
stand — it seemed no one would ever
come ”

She drew a small hand wearily
across her white brow, swaying sud-
denly.

Kane caught her in his arms — she
was only a girl, little more than a
child — and laid her gently on the
couch. There, chafing her wrists
gently, he talked in a low hurried
monotone, keeping an eye on the door
all the time — which door, by the way,
seemed to be the only entrance or
egress from the room. While he talked
he mechanically took in the chamber,
noting that it was almost a duplicate
of the outer room, as regards hang-
ings and general furnishings.

“First,” said he, “before we go
into any other matters, tell me, are
you closely guarded?”

“Very closely, sir,” she murmured
hopelessly; “I know not how you
came here, but we can never escape. ’ ’

“Let me tell you swiftly how 1
came to be here, and mayhap you will
be more hopeful when I tell you of
the difficulties already overcome. Lie
still now, Marylin, and I will tell you
how I came to seek an English heiress
in the devil city of Negari.

“I killed Sir John Taferel in a
duel. As to the reason, ’tis neither
here nor there, but slander and a black
lie lay behind it. Ere he died he con-
fessed that he had committed a foul
crime some years agone. You remem-
ber, of course, the affection cherished
for you by your cousin, old Lord
Hildred Taferal, Sir John’s uncle.
Sir John feared that the old lord,
dying without issue, might leave the
great Taferal estates to you.

“Years ago you disappeared and
Sir John spread the rumor that you
had drowned. Yet when he lay dying
with my rapier through his body, he
gasped out that he had kidnapped
you and sold you to a Barbary rover,
whom he named — a bloody pirate
whose name has not been unknown on
England’s coasts aforetime. So I
came seeking you, and a long weary
trail it has been, stretching into long
leagues and bitter years.

“First I sailed the seas searching
El Gar, the Barbary corsair named
by Sir John. I found him in the

748

WEIRD TALES

crash and roar of an ocean battle ; he
died, but even as he lay dying he told
me that he had sold you in turn to a
merchant out of Stamboul. So to the
Levant I went and there by chance
came upon a Greek sailor whom the
Moors had crucified on the shore for
piracy. I cut him down and asked him
the question I asked all men — if he
had in his wanderings seen a captive
English girl-child with yellow curls.
I learned that he had been one of the
crew of the Stamboul merchants, and
that she had, on her homeward voy-
age, been set upon by a Portuguese
slaver and sunk — this renegade Greek
and the child being among the few
who were taken aboard the slaver.

“This slaver then, cruising south
for black ivory, had been ambushed
in a small bay on the African West
Coast, and of your further fate the
Greek knew nothing, for he had
escaped the general massacre, and
taking to sea in an open boat, had
been taken up by a ship of Genoese
freebooters.

“To the West Coast, then, I came,
on the slim chance that you still lived,
and there heard among the natives
that some years ago a white child had
been taken from a ship whose crew
had been slain, and sent inland as a
part of the tribute the shore tribes
paid to the upper river chiefs.

‘ ‘ Then all traces ceased. For months
I wandered without a clue as to your
■whereabouts, nay, without a hint that
you even lived. Then I chanced to
hear among the river tribes of the
demon city of Negari and the black
queen who kept a white woman for a
slave. I came here.”

Kane’s matter-of-fact tone, his un-
furbished narration, gave no hint of
the full meaning of that tale — of what
lay behind those calm and measured
words — the sea-fights and the land
fights — the years of privation and
heart-breaking toil, the ceaseless
danger, the everlasting wandering
through hostile and unknown lands,
the tedious and deadening labor of

ferreting out the information he
wished from ignorant, sullen and un-
friendly savages, black and white.

“I came here” said Kane simply,
but what a world of courage and
effort was symbolized by that phrase !
A long red trail, black shadows and
crimson shadows weaving a devil’s
dance — marked by flashing swords
and the smoke of battle — by faltering
words falling like drops of blood from
the lips of dying men.

Not a consciously dramatic man,
certainly, was Solomon Kane. He
told his tale in the same manner in
which he had overcome terrific ob-
stacles — coldly, briefly and without
heroics.

“You see, Marylin,” he concluded
gently, ‘ ‘ I have not come this far and
done this much, to now meet with de-
feat. Take heart, child. We will find
a way out of this fearful place.”

“Sir John took me on his saddle-
bow,” the girl said dazedly, and
speaking slowly as if her native lan-
guage came strangely to her from
years of unuse, as she framed in halt-
ing words an English evening of
long ago: “He carried me to the sea-
shore where a galley’s boat waited,
filled with fierce men, dark and
mustached and having simitars, and
great rings to the fingers. The cap-
tain, a Moslem with a face like 1 ’ a
hawk, took me, I a-weeping with fear,
and bore me to his galley. Yet he was
kind to me in his way, I being little
more than a baby, and at last sold me
to a Turkish merchant, as he told you.
This merchant he met off the southern
coast of France, after many days of
sea travel.

“This man did not use me badly,
yet I feared him, for he was a man
of cruel countenance and made me
understand that I was to be sold to a
black sultan of the Moors. However,
in the Gates of Hercules his ship was
set upon by a Cadiz slaver and things
came about as you have said.

‘ ‘ The captain of the slaver believed
me to be the child of some wealthy

THE MOON OP SKULLS

749

English family and intended holding
me for ransom, but in a grim dark-
some bay on the African coast he
perished with all his men except the
Greek you have mentioned, and I was
taken captive by a black chieftain.

‘ ‘ I was terribly afraid and thought
he would slay me, but he did me no
harm and sent me up-country with an
escort, who also bore much loot taken
from the ship. This loot, together
with myself, was, as you know, in-
tended for a powerful king of the
river peoples. But it never reached
Mm, for a roving band of Negari fell
upon the beach warriors and slew
them all. Then I was taken to this
city, and have since remained, slave
to Queen Nakari.

“How I have lived through all
those terrible scenes of battle and
cruelty and murder, I know not.”

“A providence has watched over
you, child,” said Kane, “the power
which doth care for weak women and
helpless children ; which led me to you
in spite of all hindrances, and which
shall yet lead us forth from this
place, God willing. ’ ’

"My people!” she exclaimed sud-
denly like one awaking from a dream ;
“what of them?”

“All in good health and fortune,
child, save that they have sorrowed
for you through the long years. Nay,
old Sir Hildred hath the gout and
doth so swear thereat that I fear for
his soul at times. Yet methinks that
the sight of you, little Marylin, would
mend him.”

“Still, Captain Kane,” said the
girl, “I can not understand why you
came alone.”

“Your brothers would have come
with me, child, but it was not sure
that you lived, and I was loth that
any other Taferal should die in a land
far from good English soil. I rid the
country of an evil Taferal — ’twas but
just I should restore in his place a
good Taferal, if so be she still lived —
I, and I alone.”

This explanation Kane himself be-
lieved. He never sought to analyze
his motives and he never wavered,
once his mind was made up. Though
he always acted on impulse, he firaily
believed that all his actions were
governed by cold and logical reason-
ings. He was a man bom out of Ms
time — a strange blending of Puritan
and Cavalier, with a touch of the
ancient philosopher, and more than
a touch of the pagan, though the last
assertion would have shocked him un-
speakably. An atavist of the days of
blind chivalry he was, a knight errant
in the somber clothes of a fanatic.
A hunger in his soul drove him on
and on, an urge to right all wrongs,
protect all weaker things, avenge all
crimes against right and justice.
Wayward and restless as the wind, he
was consistent in only one respect —
he was true to his ideals of justice
and right. Such was Solomon Kane.

“Marylin,” he now said kindly,
taking her small hands in his sword-
calloused fingers, “methinks you have
changed greatly in the years. You
were a rosy and chubby little maid
when I used to dandle you on my
knee in old England. Now you seem
drawn and pale of face, though you
are beautiful as the nymphs of the
heathen books. There are haunting
ghosts in your eyes, child — do they
misuse you here?”

She lay back on the couch and the
blood drained slowly from her al-
ready pallid features until she was
deathly white. Kane bent over her,
startled. Her voice came in a whisper.

“Ask me not. There are deeds
better hidden in the darkness of night
and forgetfulness. There are sights
which blast the eyes and leave their
burning mark forever on the brain.
The walls of ancient cities, recked not
of by men, have looked upon scenes
not to be spoken of, even in whis-
pers.”

Her eyes closed wearily and Kane’s
troubled, somber eyes unconsciously
traced the thin blue lines of her veins.

750

WEIRD TALES

prominent against the unnatural
whiteness of her skin.

“Here is some demoniacal thing,”

he muttered, “A mystery ”

“Aye,” murmured the girl, “a
mystery that was old when Egypt
was young ! And nameless evil more
ancient than dark Babylon — that
spawned in terrible black cities when
the world was young and strange. ’ ’
Kane frowned, troubled. At the
girl’s strange words he felt an eery
crawling fear at the back of his brain,
as if dim racial memories stirred in
the eon-deep gulfs, conjuring up grim
chaotic visions, illusive and night-
marish.

Suddenly Marylin sat erect, her
eyes flaring wide with fright. Kane
heard a door open somewhere.

“Nakari!” whispered the girl ur-
gently. “Swift! She must not find
you here! Hide quickly, and” — as
Kane turned — “keep silent, whatever
may chance!”

S he lay back on the couch, feigning
slumber as Kane crossed the room
and concealed himself behind some
tapestries which, hanging upon the
wall, hid a niche that might have once
held a statue of some sort.

He had scarcely done so when the
single door of the room opened and
a strange barbaric figure stood framed
in it. Nakari, queen of Negari, had
come to her slave.

The black woman was clad as she
had been when he had seen her on
the throne, and the colored armlets
and anklets clanked as she closed the
door behind her and came into the
room. She moved with the easy sin-
uousness of a she-leopard and in spite
of himself the watcher was struck
with admiration for her lithe beauty.
Yet at the same time a shudder of
repulsion shook him, for her eyes
gleamed with vibrant and magnetic
evil, older than the world.

“Lilith!” thought Kane. “She is
beautiful and terrible as Purgatory.

She is Lilith — that foul, lovely woman
of ancient legend.”

Nakari halted by the couch, stood
looking down upon her captive for a
moment, then with an enigmatic
smile, bent and shook her. Marylin
opened her eyes, sat up, then slipped
from her couch and knelt before her
black mistress — an act which caused
Kane to curse beneath his breath. The
queen laughed and seating herself
upon the couch, motioned the girl to
rise, and then put an arm about her
waist and drew her upon her lap.
Kane watched, puzzled, while ^akari
caressed the white girl in a lazy,
amused manner. This might be affec-
tion, but to Kane it seemed more like
a sated leopard teasing its victim.
There was an air of mockery and
studied cruelty about the whole affair.

“You are very soft and pretty,
Mara,” Nakari murmured lazily,
“much prettier than the black girls
who serve me. The time approaches,
little one, for your nuptial. And a
fairer bride has never been borne up
the Black Stairs.”

Marylin began to tremble and Katie
thought she was going to faint. Na-
kari ’s eyes gleamed strangely beneath
her long-lashed drooping lids, and
her full red lips curved in a faint
tantalizing smile. Her every action
seemed fraught with some sinister
meaning. Kane began to sweat pro-
fusely.

“Mara,” said the black queen,
“you are honored above all other
girls, yet you are not content. Think
how the girls of Negari will envy you,
Mara, when the priests sing the nup-
tial song and the Moon of Skulls
looks over the black crest of the
Tower of Death. Think, little bride-
of-the-Master, how many girls have
given their lives to be his bride ! ’ ’

And Nakari laughed in her hateful
musical way, as at a rare jest. And
then suddenly she stopped short. Her
eyes narrowed to slits as they swept
the room, and her whole body tensed.
Her hand went to her girdle and

THE MOON OF SKULLS

751

came away with a long thin dagger.
Kane sighted along the barrel of his
pistol, finger against the trigger.
Only a natural hesitancy against
shooting a woman kept him from
sending death into the black heart of
Nakari, for he believed that she was
about to murder the girl.

Then with a lithe cat-like motion
she thrust the girl from her knees and
bounded back across the room, her
eyes fixed with blazing intensity on
the tapestry behind which Kane stood.
Had those keen eyes discovered him?
He quickly learned.

“Who is there?” she rapped out
fiercely. “Who hides behind those
hangings? I do not see you nor hear
you, but I know someone is there!”

Kane remained silent. Nakari 's
wild beast instinct had betrayed him
and he was uncertain as to what
course to follow. His next actions
depended on the queen.

“Mara!” Nakari ’s voice slashed
like a whip, “who is behind those
hangings? Answer me! Shall I give
you a taste of the whip again?”

The giri seemed incapable of
speech. She cowered where she had
fallen, her beautiful eyes full of ter-
ror. Nakari, her blazing gaze never
wavering, readied behind her with her
free hand and gripped a cord hanging
from the wall. She jerked viciously.
Kane felt the tapestries whip back on
either side of him and he stood re-
vealed.

For a moment the strange tableau
held — the gaunt white man in his
blood-stained, tattered garments, the
long pistol gripped in his right hand
— across the room the black queen in
her savage finery, one arm still lifted
to the cord, the other hand holding
the dagger in front of her — the white
girl cowering on the floor.

Then Kane spoke: “Keep silent,
Nakari, or you die!”

The queen seemed numbed and
struck speechless by the sudden ap-
parition. Kane stepped from among

the tapestries and slowly approached
her.

“You!” she found her voice at
last. “You must be he of whom the
guardsmen spake ! There are not two
other white men in Negari ! They said
you fell to your death ! How
then ”

“Silence!” Kane’s voice cut in
harshly on her amazed babblings; he
knew that the pistol meant nothing
to her, but she sensed the threat
of the long blade in his left hand.
“Marylin,” still unconsciously speak-
ing in the river-tribes’ language,
“take cords from the hangings and
bind her ”

He was about the middle of the
chamber now. Nakari ’s face had lost
much of its helpless bewilderment and
into her blazing eyes stole a crafty
gleam. She deliberately let her dag-
ger fall as in token of surrender, then
suddenly her hands shot high above
her head and gripped another thick
cord. Kane heard Marylin scream
but before he could take another step,
before he could pull the trigger or
even think, the floor fell beneath his
feet and he shot down into abysmal
blackness. He did not fall far and he
landed on his feet; but the force of
the fall sent him to his knees and
even as he went down, sensing a pres-
ence in the darkness beside him, some-
thing crashed against his skull and he
dropped into a yet blacker abyss of
unconsciousness.

4. Dreams of Empire

“For Rome was given to rule the world
And gat of it little joy —

But we, we shall enjoy the world.

The whole huge world a toy.”

— Chesterton.

Clowly Kane drifted back from the
^ dim realms where the unseen assail-
ant ’s bludgeon had hurled him.
Something hindered the motion of his
hands and there was a metallic olank-
(Continued on page 857)

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C ITY streets are lonely in the
small hours of the morning,
and Officer Cardigan, just
going off duty, was glad to see the big
police car draw up beside him. For one
thing it would mean a lift downtown
which would save a long wait for a
surface car. Besides the patrolman
at the wheel, the car contained a cap-
tain of detectives, a police stenogra-
pher and Dr. Hughes, the stubby, ex-
plosive little police surgeon attached
to his precinct. Cardigan knew they
had been up at the city hospital try-
ing to obtain a confession from
“Sniffy” Callers before he died.

“Any luck?” he called out as the
car stopped.

“No,” the captain of detectives re-
plied, ‘ ‘ he wouldn ’t say a word. Just
752

laughed at us. But, anyway, we —
holy Mike! What 7 s this coming?”

Cardigan turned about to follow his
gaze. Down the street a man came
running. He was barefoot and clad
only in pajamas and he ran as if all
the devils of Asia pursued him. See-
ing the officers, he gave a hoarse cry
and raced toward them. As he drew
nearer they could see that he was a
tall young man, slight of build, with
dead white hair and a face that was a
mask of horror and suffering. He
stumbled to a halt before Cardigan

and thrust out his hands, close to-
gether, his throat working convul-
sively in an effort to speak. The
officers were already climbing out of
the car.

“Your handcuffs!” the man gasped
when he could speak. “Your hand-
cuffs! In the name of pity, put the
good, clean steel on these damned
things from the Pit ! They have killed
her! Killed her! Killed the woman
I loved! Ah! Ah! Ah!”

He was babbling incoherently,

“Merciful God! If I could only forget that
song of the pit!”

shaking his hands before Cardigan.
And Officer Cardigan, who had seen
every horror that the metropolis has
to show to a policeman, looked down
at this man’s hands and gasped. They
were the hands of a strangler, those
hands. Long and lean and dark they
were and they looked inhumanly pow-
erful. As Cardigan stared at them
the lean cruel fingers were twisting
and writhing like a nest of dark
snakes.

But the thing that had caused Car-
digan to exclaim was the startling
impression those hands gave him. In
some indefinable way he knew those
hands were separate entities, knew

753

754

WEIRD TALES

that they possessed a life of their own
apart from the man who wore them !
Dazedly he fumbled with his hand-
cuffs.

“Put them on him, Cardigan.” It
was the cold, unemotional voice of the
doctor, and as the handcuffs clicked
he shook the man sharply. “Come
now ! The good, clean steel is on your
wrists. You are safe now. Tell us
what the trouble is. ’ ’

The doctor had dealt with madmen
before. At the touch of the cold
steel, the man had quieted as if from
an opiate. He looked down at his
manacled hands and nodded dully.

“Yes,” he said, “yes, I’ll tell you.
Come with me.”

He climbed into the car and gave
the address of an apartment house
near by. When they reached the
place he led them to an apartment on
the ground floor. At the door of the
bedroom, he stopped and pointed
silently.

On the wildly disordered bed the
body of a girl was lying. Her torn
and mangled throat showed the man-
ner of her death, but surely no human
hands could have mangled a throat
as this poor girl’s throat had been
mangled. The vertebrae had been
snapped like a match stick and the
muscles squeezed apart like a crushed
orange. The doctor stared in utter
disbelief at the girl’s throat and then
turned to look at those weird hands,
now writhing and straining at the
handcuffs. He stared for a moment
longer at the torn throat of the girl,
then drew a sheet over the poor form
and turned from the room.

* * Come away, ’ ’ he said to the man.
“And now tell us how it happened.”

With a strong effort, the man drew
his eyes away from the grisly thing
on the bed and led the way into the
living-room. Each man felt a peculiar
sensation of being watched, the sensa-
tion that men sometimes feel in the
midst of the jungle, an instinct that
is handed down from the Elder
World. They glanced about and lo-

cated the source of the feeling at once.

It was a grand piano. A magnifi-
cent thing of carved walnut and great
powerful lines, its dark grandeur
dominated the room, seemed to over-
shadow it. The man glanced at the
thing, then drew his eyes away with
a shudder. Drearily waving the oth-
ers into chairs around a table, he
seated himself and began.

“TVyTY name is William Tchianski,”
-‘-’A he said. “I am the adopted
son of Wladimir Tchianski, the pian-
ist, and she” — he nodded toward the
murdered girl in the next room — “she
is my wife, Helen. We were married
a week ago. ’ ’

“Why did you kill her?” inter-
rupted the captain of detectives.

“I did not kill her. I loved her,
more than anything else in the world.
They killed her!”

He laid the dark, shackled hands on
the table and stared dully at the
writhing, twisting fingers.

“All right,” the captain answered
patiently, “why did they kill her?”

The man smiled gently. “You
think I am mad, don’t you? But I
am not. Emotionally torn to pieces,
yes, but not mad. And now, gentle-
men, if you please, I should like to
begin at the beginning and tell the
story in my own way. Otherwise^ you
would not understand me.”

He moved the writhing hands be-
neath the table and in a dull, lifeless
monotone began his story. '-. n

“I was ten years old when Tchian-
ski took me from the orphanage where
I had been left a foundling. Why he
selected me instead of one of the
other boys at the orphanage, I do not
know, but, on the train going home, he
told me his reason for adopting a son,

“He was a pianist, he said, the
greatest in the world, and he wanted
someone to carry on his name and
fame when he died. He would give
me a home and the very best musical
education obtainable, and in return
I was to study hard and fit myself to

HAUNTED HANDS

755

carry on his fame as a pianist when
he died. It was a cold matter of busi-
ness; from the very first he made it
clear that there was no sentiment in-
volved, but to me, freed at last from
the rigid discipline of the orphanage,
it seemed a godsend of kindness.
Eagerly I agreed to work with all my
might to carry out my part of the
bargain.

“We left the train at Turgot, a
small town upstate, and late that af-
ternoon I saw the place that was to be
my home until I reached manhood.
The house was more like a grim, me-
diaeval castle than a modern home.
Built entirely of stone, its age-grimed
turrets and walls were almost hidden
by the thick, clinging tendrils of the
ivy that blanketed them. The build-
ing was located in the center of the
estate and the whole was surrounded
by a high stone wall.

“Tehianski began at once with my
musical education. I learned rapidly
enough, but after a time it began to be
apparent that my patron had made a
bad selection. It was simply not in
me to become a master and seemingly
never would be. I could play the mu-
sic that was put before me, yes. I
could strike the notes that were indi-
cated, strike them as accurately as a
machine, but the flaming genius that
enabled Tehianski to weave a glow-
ing thing of flame and beauty from
the cold keys of a piano was in me
simply non-existent.

“When Tehianski was finally forced
to the conclusion that I could never
become the master player that he was,
he was wild with rage. Pacing up
and down the room, he would listen
to my mechanical rendition of a selec-
tion and curse savagely. Then he
would spring to the piano, shove me
aside, and under his fingers the score
that I had been playing like an autom-
aton would become a shimmering
thing of flame and glory. Often I
begged him to give up the hopeless
task and take some one who possessed

the talent I lacked. But, no, he would
not admit failure.

‘ ‘ ‘ There are ways, ’ ho would mut-
ter. ‘ Even with a machine like you,
there are ways. Ways which those
fools out there do not know!’

“His contemptuous gesture was to-
ward the village but I knew that it
included the whole wide world of
sane normal men and women. For,
down in the village, I had heard
strange tales of this man. Tales of
ghostly lights that had flickered
through the gloomy old castle in tho
small hours of the night. Tales of
dreadful orgies, of wild, evil chants,
faintly heard, whispers of the Black
Mass. Dreadful furtive tales that I
had been too young to understand
and had refused to believe when I
grew old enough to understand.

“But as the years rolled by, I was
forced to believe them. There were
rooms in the house which I was stern-
ly forbidden to enter. At times I was
summarily ordered to pack a bag
and leave the place for a specified
length of time. And on a few very
rare occasions I had caught glimpses
of terrible books in Tehianski ’s
study. As I grew into the under-
standing that comes with manhood,
there could no longer be any doubt :
this man who had taken me for his
own was a worshipper of Satan, a
priest of the Prince of Darkness.
Oddly enough, I attached little im-
portance to this when I was certain
of the truth. It was to me very dis-
gusting and suggestive of insanity,
but nothing more.

“So the years rolled by until I
reached manhood; then Tehianski
died. I was in New York City at the
time. There was no warning, merely
a telegram commanding me to return
at once. When I reached home he
was seated in an armchair, fully
dressed, apparently in the best of
health. He gave me no word of
greeting, only motioned me to a chair
and broke the news without pre-
amble.

756

WEIRD TALES

“ ‘William,* he said, ‘I am about
to die. I have just six hours more to
live and I have something to say be-
fore I go. No, no, do not interrupt.
I know what you are going to say —
& doctor and all the rest of the cus-
tomary rigmarole. But a doctor
could not help me. He could not
even find anything the matter with
me. No, it is to discuss your future,
not mine, that I have called you. I
want to know what you plan to do
with your life when I am gone. I
have made my will in your favor and
there is plenty for you to finish your
musical education under the best
masters of Europe, if you will go on.
That is what I want to know, if you
intend to go on. There never was
any pretense of affection between us
and there will be none now. I want
no sobbing vows. I only want a can-
did statement of your intentions.
That is all. ’

“The great, dark head was held
coldly erect and those blazing eyes
were boring into my brain, searching
out every hidden comer.

“‘You know the answer, sir,’ I
told him. ‘When you took me from
that orphanage, we made a certain
bargain: that in exchange for your
care of me, I was to study and fit my-
self to carry on your name as a
pianist when you died. Every day of
my life since that time, I have done
my best to carry out my part of that
bargain, and if you are really near
to death, you can rest assured that
I shall do my best in the future as I
have in the past. But you know that I
have no talent for music and I can
not promise success. I can only
promise to do my best. ’

“Tchianski leaned forward in his
chair and stared tensely into my
eyes for a long moment. When he
spoke, his voice was very low and
tense.

“ ‘Listen to me, William. You
have heard strange tales of me down
there in the village. Tales of dread
rituals. Tales of a power that or-

dinary men do not possess. Tales
that you may or may not have be-
lieved. But those tales are true, Wil-
liam! I do possess those powers and I
know too much to be balked of my
plans by what those fools call death.
Alone, you would never be anything
but an automaton, but you will not be
alone. Oh, no, you will not be alone.
Far from it. Listen to me, boy!

“ ‘You know my wishes. Obey
them and I will send these hands of
mine back from the grave to play for
you. Refuse, and by the power of the
Pit I will send these same hands back
from the grave to strangle you,!’

“He lifted his hands — these hands,
gentlemen — and shook them before
my eyes. For months they haunted
me. Those dark, cruel hands, with
their lean, writhing fingers.

“■\X7'hen I entered his study the
* Vnext morning, I found him
dead. He was seated in his armchair,
sternly erect, gazing straight ahead
as one who waits the coming of an
expected messenger. All of his books
and other objects dealing with Satan-
ism had been destroyed, and in a Heat
pile at his side lay all of his business
papers, including his will, ready for
me. On the top of the pile lay a pa-
per containing the directions for his
burial. To my surprize, there Wtts
nothing particularly objectionable in
these directions. He merely stated
that ‘ as certain events made it impos-
sible for him to be buried by mem-
bers of his own faith, he was to be
buried without aid of clergy and with
as little publicity as possible.’ v

“When his attorney called the next
day to help me str-’ghten out his af-
fairs, I learned with a shock that it
would be utterly impossible for me to
carry out his plans as I had meant to
do ; for the fortune he left me consist-
ed of mining stock as worthless as so
much waste paper. Like many men of
genius, he had no more business acu-
men than a child. I had to sell the
house and furniture to meet his debts

HAUNTED HANDS

757

and pay the funeral expenses. When it
was over, I had little more than the
clothes upon my back with which to
face the world. And his piano. I
kept that, of course.

“There was only one thing to do.
Go to work at once and, when I had
sufficient money saved, to take up my
musical studies again, as he had
wished. Almost immediately I ob-
tained a position with the company of
which I am now an officer. I loved the
work and plunged into it whole-
heartedly. Twelve and sixteen hours
a day I was working, and I was mak-
ing wonderful progress. But there
was no time for anything but work,
and for two years his piano sat there
untouched.

“And then I met Helen.”

The man paused wearily, and Car-
digan held a glass of water to his
lips. The man drank and then went
on with his story, speaking in the same
dull, lifeless monotone.

“I had been sent by my firm to
show her some property about which
die had inquired, and it was, with me,
a case of love at first sight. I was
completely captivated by this lovely,
gentle girl and I was soon calling
upon her regularly. She was a concert
pianist, and already she was begin-
ning to make a name for herself.
Gradually I told her something of my
early life. I did not tell her of my
patron’s Satan-worship nor of his
gruesome dying threat but I did tell
her of how he had taken me from an
orphanage and how I expected to take
up the study of music as soon as I had
money enough*. When I told her of
Tchianski’s piano and how it had sat
there untouched for two years, she ex-
pressed a wish to see the instrument,
and one day, at the termination of a
shopping tour, I took her to my apart-
ment to see the piano of the great
Tchianski.

“That was less than a month ago,
but it seems a thousand years. We
were so happy, then, like two laughing
children, as I took her hand and led

her up to that diabolical piano. She
seated herself and played a selection
she had brought with her. As her
dainty fingers rippled up and down
the keyboard, that damnable thing
seemed to stir itself like some slimy
dragon slowly coming to life. I
could fed the thing, just as you gen-
tlemen can, do doubt, feel it now.

“But Helen seemed to notice noth-
ing unusual. Or perhaps she was too
much absorbed in the music she was
playing — a new opera, a prison song —
and under her trained fingers the
music swelled up into a sobbing song
of heartbreak and passion. When she
had finished she arose and laughingly
insisted that it was my turn now.

“Just why I seated myself at the
piano, I do not know. Certainly I
should never, in my normal state,
have made myself ridiculous by at-
tempting that complicated score
after two years ■without practise.
But something seemed to draw me
toward that unholy piano. Like a
man in a daze I seated myself and
aimlessly dropped my hands on the
keyboard.

“Then something in me snapped
and I was playing; or rather my
hands were playing, for I was con-
scious of not one note of that musie!
I was staring dully at the score and it
registered in my brain as nothing
more than a white blur. Like a man
in a trance, I sat there and my fin-
gers were flying back and forth'
across the keyboard like demons of
hell, suddenly released.

“Beneath those flying fingers the
music rose up and up, into a wailing
thing of glory. Helen had played
the score with all the consummate
skill of an artist, but her rendition
had been pale and colorless beside
this mad thing that was being woven
beneath my fingers.

“When I had finished, there were
tears in Helen’s eyes and she poured
out a flood of eager questions — ques-
tions to which I had no answer, for
I was as puzzled as she. Not for a

758

WEIRD TALES

moment ■would I believe that my pa-
tron had really been able to keep his
promise to send his hands back from
the grave to play for me; that sa-
vored too much of medieval super-
stition. Yet I could think of no other
reasonable explanation. I made some
fumbling answer to Helen ’s questions
and took her home as soon as pos-
sible.

“T had no sleep that night — had I
but known it, that night was the
forerunner of so many other nights
when I was not to sleep — but I did
decide upon the only sensible course
to be taken. I would tell Helen the
things I had not told her before, and
together we would find a solution to
the mystery if there was one to be
found.

“When I called upon Helen the
next evening, I told her the things I
had not cared to mention before. I
told her of my patron’s Satan-wor-
ship and of the gruesome threat he
had made before dying. Then I told
her of how I had played that music,
the evening before, without being
conscious of a note of it.

“When I had finished my story
she was as puzzled as I. Like myself,
she would not believe that Tchianski
actually possessed the power to do
the thing he had threatened, but, like
myself, she could think of no other
explanation of what had happened.
The best that she could do was to
suggest that I experiment by play-
ing the piano as much as possible and
trust to time to solve the mystery.

“And so began what was surely
the strangest test ever undertaken by
two people. Night after night I sat
before that damnable piano and
played while Helen sat enraptured
listening to the wild glories that my
fingers evoked without direction
from my mind. I tried to play upon
other pianos and found that upon
them my hands would not play with
the same ease.

“So it was that each night I came
back to that Satanic piano and Helen
sat, tense, listening to those glorious,
hell-born symphonies. Night after
night I played, and day after day
my contacts with the sane, normal
people of the business world seemed
more and more like a dream. Only
the nighttime seemed real, when I
could sit before that piano and listen
to my hands weave those crashing
symphonies from the Pit. Then, so
suddenly that it was like a crashing
blow to a man stumbling through a
dark room, I discovered the truth !

“From the first night at the piano,
it had seemed to me that my hands
were growing longer and darker. I
had thought it merely a hallucina-
tion born of the emotional stress un-
der which I was laboring, and it was
more to quiet my own fears than in
any real question that I made a care-
ful measurement of them. When I
measured them again, my brain sick-
ened in horror. There could be no
doubting the cold figures before me.
My hands were rapidly growing
longer and already they w r ere much
darker.

“That night when I seated myself
at the piano I received the final con-
firmation, if any had been needed.
No sooner was I seated than my
hands fairly leaped upon the keys.
But it was no mere riot of song that
was being played by those hands
now. It was a message that was be-
ing told to me by the singing keys,
a message that I could understand as
plainly as the spoken word — the voice
of the Satanist, Tchianski, exulting
that at last I knew, demanding that
I yield my will to his and become his
creature.

“If I would obey — the singing
keys whispered to me a tale of state-
ly glory — of fame — the adulation of
beautiful women — gold — a power
that was greater than that of man — ■
all these things would be mine if I
would obey.

“If I refused — the music changed

HAUNTED HANDS

759

its joyous tempo. It breathed ter-
rible threats — lewd hints of forgot-
ten arts — of things that sane men
should never know. There were
secrets, the singing keys whispered,
dread secrets of the Pit, and if a man
were willing to pay the price for
those secrets, he could reach back —
even through the Veil, he could reach
back — to strike at those who refused
to obey his will.

. “I remember screaming and
straining to jerk my hands away
from the keyboard — straining with
all my might as they clung to the
keys like quicksand. Then every-
thing went black before me. For the
first time in my life, I had fainted.

‘ ‘ \A7hen I had regained conseious-
' * ness, Helen was bending over
me frantic with fear, terrified as much
by that unholy music as by my faint-
ing. For while she had not understood
as clearly as I the message those keys
had whispered, she had understood
their evil import.

j “.When I told Helen that there
could no longer be any doubt that
Tchianski had been able to keep his
promise — that the hands upon my
wrists were his, not mine — she nod-
ded in agreement.

'** ‘Yes, I have really been sure of
it fbr days now, and so have you, I
am sure. And there is only one thing
to do. You must never touch a piano
again, Billy. You could be the great-
est pianist in the world, but it would
be at the price of your soul and that
is a price too great to pay. No mat-
ter what promise you made to him,
you can break it with honor when
your soul is the price of its fulfil-
ment. Once you have been away
from the piano for a while, he will
lose whatever hold he has upon you.
Of that I am sure. ’

“ ‘Yes,’ I replied, ‘I feel that I can
honorably break my promise after
this. And I am sure that he knows
our decision. But if he is here, lis-
tening to us, it is only just that I

should go to the piano one more time
to hear his final word. And after to-
night, I shall never touch a piano
again. Somehow, I hope that he will
understand and forgive me.’

“With Helen’s anxious eyes upon
me, I walked to the piano and seated
myself. The instant that I touched
the keys there was a wild jangle of
sound from the piano. Then the
dark hands were racing up and down
the keys like mad beasts, pouring out
a wild, incoherent scream of hate!
hate! hate!

“Helen shrieked and leaped to my
side, trying to tear my hands from
the keyboard. I added my strength
to hers but we were as helpless as
two children in the grip of a giant.
On and on that mad song of hate
played, gradually changing its tone.
It was lower now, low and tense like
the snarl of a cornered beast. Over
and over the keys whispered that
snarling tale of a hate that would
never die, never relent, until its vic-
tim had been drawn through the Veil
to it. Lower and lower the music
sank until it dared to whisper that
even after death there would be a
ghastly vengeance out there in the
dark. Suddenly I realized with a
cry of horror that this devil’s tale
of hate and vengeance was not for
me alone — that it was directed at the
woman I loved as much as at myself.
For the second time that evening, I
fainted.

“This time, when I regained con-
sciousness, there was no Helen bend-
ing over me. She, too, had under-
stood that low, snarling threat and
had fainted. When I saw her pale,
lovely face before me and realized
the danger she had faced with me, I
gave silent thanks that I had not yet
declared my love. At least I could
spare her. I would at once drop out
of her life, and with me would go, I
thought, the menaee of this thing
from the Pit.

“When I had brought her back to
consciousness, I told her of my deci-

.760 WEIRD TALES

sion. And then I learned the full
depths of a gentle woman’s love.

“She looked at me tenderly for a
moment then. ‘You’ve loved me for
a long time, now, haven’t you,
Billy ? ’ she asked.

“There was no blush on her face
as she spoke, no false modesty of
drooping head, only a great, tender
love. I could only nod, dumbly.

“ *1 know,’ she continued. ‘I have
known for a long time, now. And
I’ve loved you even longer. Don’t
you see, beloved, that no matter
what he can do to us it will not be so
hard to bear as separation would be ?
No, Billy, we will fight this thing to-
gether, and if he wins here, we will
go out there in the dark to face him
— still together. And in the end we
will xvin, beloved, for love is the great-
est power in the universe. No matter
what weapons he has, they will not
overcome such love as ours.’

“We sat there for a long time, hud-
dled in each other’s arms, like two
frightened children, comforting each
other, and then I took her home.

“When I returned home I was al-
most calm, and happier than I had
been for days. No matter what hor-
ror was in store for me, I should not
have to face it alone. There was a
great flood of love in my heart for
this gentle, loving girl who was fac-
ing death and worse than death for
love of me, and the memory of her
warm lips on mine was like a bene-
diction. For the first time in many
weary nights, I fell asleep as soon as
I retired.

"T do not know how long I slept, but
suddenly I was aware that my
bedroom was filled with a clammy
cold, a chill draft that seemed to bear
the stench of the charnel-house.
Above my head hovered a shadow
that was dimly visible as being dark-
er than the rest of the room. And
from the shadow glared the burning
eyes of Tchianski, the Satanist !
Closer apd closer to me came the
•dreadful eyes, and now I could see

the cruel strangler hands below
them. Then a voice sounded, a voice
that was low and tense— like that
music I had played a few hours ago.

“ ‘Since you have broken your
vow, William, I have returned to
keep mine.’

“Steadily the cruel hands moved
closer to my throat, closer and yet
closer as I desperately struggled to
rise and throw myself out of their
path. It was like that phenomenon
known as a dream within a dream,
where a sleeper in the throes of a
horrible nightmare struggles to
awaken himself. >

“Mad with horror, I watched — I
felt — those damnable hands creep up
my chest — up — up, until I felt them
fasten about my throat, felt my
breath cut off and dimly felt my own
desperate struggle to throw off those
strangling hands. It seemed that I
went through long eons of torture
before I awoke — to find my hands
clutched about my throat in a
strangling hold that left great blue
marks upon my throat for days. My
hands! II is hands! :;«i of

‘ ‘ Of what followed, I have no clear
recollection. I have fragmentary
memories of running through ' the
streets, babbling incoherent thjpgs
as I ran. Somehow, I found myself
battering at the door of Helen’s
apartment, and I can remember her
terrified scream when she opened the
door and saw me, but the rest Qf.-,the
night was only a nightmare memory
of crouching in her arms trying to
ward off the memory of those dread-
ful hands. When morning came she
brought a mirror to me. Overnight,
my hair had turned white and my
face was lined with the horror I had
experienced.

“ ‘And now,’ she said quietly, ‘we
are going to be married at once.
Never again, beloved, will you face
those horror-filled nights alone. Al-
ways, hereafter, you will have me
by your side to help you in this
dreadful fight.’

HAUNTED HANDS

761

“And I yielded. There is no ex-
cuse I can offer for what I did. At
first, of course, I begged her to leave
me to face the thing alone. I even
told her that I would leave the city
at once in order to move the danger
away from her. But in the end, I
yielded. For one thing, I was sure
that she was marked for vengeance
as well as I, by that thing from the
-Pit; that, even if I fled, she would
eventually face it, and it were bet-
ter that we face it together. But it
was more than a mere matter of rea-
soning. It was her calm and oft-
reiterated statement that ‘no matter
,what he can do to us, it will not be so
hard to bear as separation.' Love
like ours does not often come to men.
That day we slipped over into Con-
necticut and were quietly married.
She packed a few things in a bag
and we came to my apartment to
live.”

The man shifted warily in his
chair. Cardigan brought him another
glass of water. Then he went on,
speaking more rapidly as if anxious
to be done with his story.

‘ ‘ npHAT was a week ago, gentle-

A men. A week, but it seems like
a lifetime in hell. A week without
sleep, gentlemen. Do you know
what it means to live for a week
without the blessed release of sleep?
To fight with all your might against
sleep, knowing that it would bring
death? Time and again I would drift
into slumber and awake to find Helen
tugging desperately at a pair of dark
hands that were at my throat — hands
that were hands from the Pit though
they were attached to my wrists. Out-
side, on the street, people were passing
— sane, normal people going about the
prosy, everyday round of life, and
inside we crouched in each other’s
arms like two children afraid of the
dark.

“It will, no doubt, seem strange to
you that we did nothing but cower

there and wait — that we availed our-
selves of none of the aids of modern
civilization. But, somehow, we knew
that it would be useless, that nothing
could be done unless we could prove
our will stronger than his. Oh, yes,
we talked of various things. Travel.
A doctor. But we knew that it
would only mean death in some mad-
house, and death was not the worst
thing we feared now. Already we
were beginning to plan our real fight
— our fight against him out there in
the dark, when we had passed
through the Veil.

“And so the week dragged slowly
through, with its nights of horror
and its days of dreadful waiting.
Yesterday I received a letter from
the management of the Turgot Cem-
etery where Tchianski was buried.
The cemetery is being moved to make
way for a dam, and the letter was to
notify me that his grave would be
opened today. It started a new train
of thought in my mind. Perhaps if
I went there and obtained his re-
mains and burned them to ashes, it
would help in our fight against him.
As I thought the matter over, I grew
almost hopeful. Perhaps I could
even snatch an hour or so of sleep
while she watched over me.

“And when I awoke again I was
seated at the piano and playing 1

“Merciful God! If I could only
forget that Song of the Pit that those
damned hands were playing ! It was
a wild paean of — triumph ! A devil’s
jubilee, a dirge played in utter, joy-
ous syncopation. A chant of all the
demons of hell as they chanted their
devilish tales in my ears. And over
it all Ms voice shouting a hellish
song of victory in my suddenly com-
prehending ears ! God ! how his wild
laughter rang out under those flying
fingers! How gleefully the singing
keys chuckled and whispered their
grisly tale to me — of how those evil
hands had waited — waited patiently
( Continued on page 862)

Me EMPTY

"Then scarlet Bps seemed beg-
gasg for love.”

S TANLEY WARDEN’S conva-
lescence was peculiar in that he
seemed to know in advance
just how soon he would recover;
when he would leave the hospital for
his home and how soon he would be
back at the office.

He had regained consciousness
after an operation which had re-
moved an abscess from the base of
his brain with a feeling similar to
that experienced when one steps
from a dark alley into a brightly
lighted street and is doubtful which
way to turn.

During the days which followed it
was borne upon him irresistibly that
in those far places to which an anes-
thetic had swept him he had gained
the ability to remember the future
as well as the past.

762

As he gained strength this pp-
canny foreknowledge annoyed him
more and more. It didn’t pusph?
him. For some reason it seemed
quite natural that he should see his
life unrolling far before him. But
it took all the flavor from existence.

The endearments which his mother
and Jerry Sanders, his fiancee, show-
ered upon him when he retumed Ao
his apartment, the things he had to
eat, even the weather and the news
in the papers — all were as a twice-
told tale long before they reached
him.

He faneied himself as an unending
series of figures, each one step ahead
of the last, along which his soul —
the spark which actually was alive
— passed without variation, like a

THE EMPTY ROAD

763

beam of light traveling along a bas-
relief in some old gallery.

Only his thoughts seemed free. He
never could tell what he would be
thinking in the future, but in spite
of this his acts were as fixed by the
law of cause and effect as though
they had been graven in stone ages
before.

He became more and more irked
by the predestined nature of every-
thing surrounding him. Forcing
himself to the utmost against bonds
which gripped him, he tried little
acts of rebellion — knocked over an
inkwell that according to his mem-
ory of coming events should have
remained untouched — chose a differ-
ent suit from the one in which he had
seen himself attired.

Oddly enough he found it entirely
possible to do these unimportant
things, but afterward he would feel
a faint, cold chill pass over him, as
though he had dislodged a tiny stone
in the abutment of the university
which might topple the whole struc-
ture to ruin.

With more important acts, rebel-
lion was much more difficult and
painful. For instance, he tried to
stay away from the office on the day
when, according to the ordinary
course of events, he would have re-
turned to work, and when, in fact,
he clearly saw himself taking his ac-
customed place at his mahogany
desk.

For a few minutes he felt brave
and daring, as though he were defy-
ing the laws of nature successfully.
Then, though he strove to dally over
his breakfast tray, the pull of some
compelling power seemed dragging
him to his feet.

Cursing, he elung to the arms of
his chair, but something more power-
ful than himself was urging him to
don clothes and hurry downtown. It
wasn’t a physical pressure, he re-
alized — rather a mental urge, which,
like the force that propels a drug
addict to his narcotic, was driving

him to do something — driving him so
powerfully that at last his will-power
crumbled.

Gritting his teeth in fury he hur-
ried into his clothing, ordered a taxi
and arrived at his office at the very
minute when he had seen himself
entering the door.

A s the weeks passed Stanley be-
came more and more engrossed
in experimenting with his new-found
ability, at once fascinating and bru-
tally terrifying.

Was there no such thing as a free
soul ? W ere all beings chained to the
law of cause and effect as the Hin-
doos pictured mankind chained to the
wheel of life, revolving over and over
along the same path until Nirvana,
or forgetfulness, put an end to the
farce?

He made deeper excursions into his
“memories”, as he could not help
but call them.

He saw himself married to this
dark-haired, dark-eyed Jerry whom
he loved. He saw himself a success-
ful business man, a proud father, a
pillar of the church; saw his chil-
dren wed, and waited with baited
breath for news of the coming of
his first grandchild.

A happy life, he could not but ad-
mit. There were sorrows and wor-
ries, of course, but luck and hard
work and right dealing seemed al-
ways to bring sunshine out of the
clouds.

Delving still deeper he came to the
end — even unto his death — and he
could envision that as plainly as if it
were tomorrow. He felt himself ly-
ing on his bed — tired, but not in pain.
He saw the faces of children and
grandchildren, and a worn, sweet
likeness of Jerry bending over him.

He felt his breath drawing shorter,
a strange numbness creeping over his
body — and that was alL
Beyond that curtain he could not
go, although more dearly than ever
before he felt there was something

764

WEIRD TALES

beyond that — something. Always he
breathed a prayer of relief that that
had been spared him — that if there
were other lives as fixed as this he
could not know it.

Coming out of such a revery as
this he would find himself filled with
bitterness. Often such spells would
come upon him while he was sitting
before his grate fire while Jerry, who
almost made her home at the apart-
ment since his illness, and his mother,
were in the kitchen concocting a sup-
per to tempt his jaundiced appetite.

Once, in the access of his rage he
hurled a poker into the dancing
flames in which he had seen his future
mocking him, and was cursing sav-
agely when he caught a glimpse of
the startled faces of the two women
watching him from the kitchen.

And slowly he began to form an
intense disgust for Jerry’s gay, high-
spirited way of looking at life; for
the carefree manner in which she
looked fate in the eye and made a
“snoot”, as she called it.

As she said mockingly one day
when he felt particularly blue : “Why
grouch, Stan? You know the old
poem which the ghost recited as it
sat on the tombstone :

Life is a joke and all things show it.

Once I thought so; now I know it.

“Smile, dearest,” she continued,
half plaintive, half laughing, as she
perched on his knees before the fire
and experimented with his nose and
ruffled up his eyebrows. “You’re too
serious since you’ve been ill. You
take life too soberly. Heavens ! One
would think you had the weight of
the world on your shoulders! Re-
member, we don’t know what’s go-
ing to happen to us, and we should
squeeze joy out of every happy mo-
ment we have, so that in case a rainy
day comes we’ll have some left over.”

She kissed him then, and he held
her tight and loved her. But the
mood of playfulness she inspired
passed and once more he found him-

self face to face with an unchanging
fate.

If he only dared tell her — dared
talk about it. But he knew she would
think him feverish, and humor him —
or mad, and be frightened at him.

So he kept silent and felt a greater
and greater irritation at her gayety
and devil-may-care attitude.

Her little acts of kindness began to
infuriate him. Particularly he de-
tested her habit of filling the room
with flowers when she came. Their
aroma oppressed him. Their massed
blooms seemed to menace him.

Perhaps, he thought, this might be
explained by the fact that once when
a boy of five he had wandered into
the conservatory at an uncle ’s house,
and knocked down a shelf of bloom-
ing roses. Buried under the mixture
of soil and bruised blooms he had
almost suffocated before being rescued
by a gardener.

This experience always had haunt-
ed him like a nightmare, and now
after his illness it increased, and was
made more annoying by Jerry’s per-
sistence in bringing in great loads of
blooms. He hated to hurt her feel-
ings by forbidding this, but raged in-
wardly.

Gradually a plan of rebellion
against the whole scheme of things
as they are began forming in his
super-sensitive mind. It was an evil
plan, he knew, and yet so great had
the pressure become that he did not
care.

Now, he reasoned, if it had been
possible for him to knock over the
inkwell, and dress in the wrong suit
of clothes, and see a different show,
why should it not be possible for
him to break the chain entirely and
escape into a realm where he no long-
er was at the mercy of the powers
that be?

He remembered the day when he
fought against going to the office,
but his hatred of forces which bound
him had grown so great that he was

THE EMPTY ROAD

76S

blindly determined to make another
effort.

A complete break it must be, he
knew, if he were to escape. What
should it be and how could it be ac-
complished so that like Ulysses, who
was bound to the mast so that he
might hear the Sirens and yet not
succumb to their wiles, he, Stanley
Warden, might be borne away in
spite of his urge to fulfil his destiny?

The word “mast” decided him. A
boat, of course, which would bear
him away from the daily routine so
he could not return. And the great-
est break possible in the chain? A
break with Jerry !

The thought stunned him. Yet,
now that he had thought it over, that
was the only way. A lesser break —
such as quitting his job, easily could
be mended, like a broken thread in a
loom, and the cloth would scarcely
show it.

But if he left Jerry for ever! There
could be no return.

Slowly, during the long nights
when he could not sleep and sat in
slippirs and lounging-robe before the
fire staring into the flames he began
composing a letter.

Should it be merely : “ I have found
I do' not love you”? or “I love
another”? or simply “You bore me
to tears”? The latter, he decided,
would be the most final. Jerry might
think he was indulging his “weird
humor” if he wrote the former, but
“You bore me” — that she would
never forgive.

So he wrote it. A neat, little note,
scorching and bitter, and, though he
did not know it, filled with the agony
of his too-enlightened soul.

Then, on a day when he happened
to be passing near a steamship ticket
office, he dashed inside and stammer-
ingly asked for a ticket to London.

Strong hands seemed gripping him
by the shoulders, frying to force him
out the door and into the regular
routine of life, which for a moment

he had escaped. Rubber bands
seemed clogging his arms as he
reached for his billfold to pay for
the ticket.

Yet he succeeded, and, as the
amazed clerk stared after this mad-
man, he snatched the pasteboards,
dashed out of the door, and after
three blocks of frenzied walking
caught up with that — that other self,
and merged again into the everyday
current of events.

As his sailing date approached he
became more and more tender to-
ward Jerry, trying in some dim way
to make up for the hurt he must do
her; for the horror and confusion
into which he must throw her when
she too would find the world of cause
and effect tumbling about her, and a
world of chance in its place. For of
course the chain of her life — and of
how many others — would be dis-
rupted if his plan succeeded and he
withdrew from his accustomed
round. It would be as if a tiny but
essential cog in a vast machine had
rebelled against its duty.

Strangely he felt no great pity.
He had become as a scientist, push-
ing pawns about a board. He had
become — he scarcely dared think of
it — in some way a god, operating out-
side the laws of the universe. Now
that he had achieved that attitude he
felt no fear of failure.

T omorrow he sailed. Everything
was arranged. His valises were
packed. His mother had returned to
her home. No one would know.

Midnight approached. He could
not sleep.

“Like one, that on a lonesome road
Doth walk in fear and dread,

And having once turned round, walks on,
And tnrns no more his head.”

He stumbled into his clothes and
paced back and forth across the liv-
ing-room. The Celtic sailed at 7 a. m.
Beyond was darkness. He could not
see. The chain was snapped and he

766

WEIRD TALES

was walking down that lonely road
shivering as with the ague :

“Because he knows a frightened fiend

Doth close behind him tread.”

He pulled on his topcoat and hur-
ried out into the street. The compul-
sion which had governed him so long
seemed slackening. He moved with-
out that terrible dragging which had
at first encumbered his rebellion.
And oddly enough he felt all at once
frightened and lost and immeasur-
ably lonely.

He posted the note to Jerry, and
watched idly as the last mailman un-
locked the box and slipped it into his
pouch. That would mean Jerry
would receive it next morning. At
that time he would be far out on the
Atlantic. The die was cast.

He turned down the street, shiver-
ing slightly in the raw, damp atmos-
phere of an early spring night. He
would take a long walk and steady
his nerves. God ! He wished he had
a drink.

A gentle touch on his elbow caused
him to whirl in a sweat of terror. He
had been sure there was no one near-
er than the retreating mail truck.
But it was only a little, wizened man
in the red livery of a butler.

“Beg pardon, but are you Stanley
Warden?” this one asked.

“ Why, yes,” he replied, lighting a
cigarette with hands that shook ever
so slightly. “What can I do for
you?”

“My master, John Brown, who
lives in the brownstone house across
the street, is having a , dinner party
for some of his friends,” the little
man said with an accent faintly
furred by some queer foreign phrase-
ology. “One of the guests has been
detained, and Mr. Brown has a
superstition against sitting down
with an empty chair at table. He
asked that I find another guest, and
since I know you by sight I thought
perhaps ”

His voice trailed off. Stanley had
a queer notion that he was being
watched by other eyes. Suddenly
he noticed that the butler was a
hunchback — that his head was set
at a queer thrusting angle. That ac-
counted for his shortness of stature.

“Why, yes,” Stanley laughed, a
trifle discordantly. “I’ve nothing to
do until dawn and I can’t sleep. I’d
be glad to join the party. Lead o«|
Macduff.”

Without a word the butler turned
and preceded him quickly across the!
street and into an imposing entrance;
Odd, Warden thought. He never had
noticed the sumptuousness of the
place. It always had appeared to be
a gone-to-seed residence of the Gay
Nineties. But now !

T he hunchback bowed him into a
lofty dining-room and vanished.
A hasty glance assured Stanley that
the place was really magnificent.
That must be a real Gobelin tapestry,
and the mold of the Parthenon still
seemed to cling about those mar-
bles. . . .

His host was advancing with hands
outstretched.

“So glad you could come, Mr^War*
den,” he smiled, detaching himself
from a group of guests and approach-
ing with a slightly halting ' gait.
“Never does to have an empty' ’chair
at table.”

Warden found himself looking Into
a fathomless pair of jet eyes, and
gripping a long, sinewy hand, that
felt strangely warm and dry. As
they returned to the table he tried to
determine, without appearing^ rtide,
just what was the matter with his
host’s feet, but the latter walked
slightly behind him with a hand on
his elbow.

It was a strange company, that,
grouped about the long table, which
glimmered with linen and silver.
Stanley noticed with a start that
there were but eleven guests besides
himself. His was the thirteenth
chair.

THE EMPTY ROAD

I<?7

A few of them he recognized as he
was introduced: Solomon Levy, the
broker, who was reputed to have
made close to a billion on the stock
market that season; Arnold Brutus,
the criminal lawyer, who never had
lost a case ; Stephen Mathy, the
author, who had been involved in an
unsavory murder-suicide scandal not
sis months ago, but who had been
pronounced blameless by a jury.

Others puzzled him. Somehow
they were out of drawing, odd, a
litfle repulsive. And all peered at
him with an interest which seemed
Warmer than should have greeted a
casual guest.

ii But the dinner, late though it was,
was magnificent: food such as he
never had dreamed of; wines that
prohibition’s fingers never had
clutched; liquors like the breath of
Venus.

He succumbed entirely to the
spell and basked for an hour in the
comfort and well-being which it in-
voked.

He was startled, when, after the
last dish had been cleared away, his
host arose abruptly, glass in hand.

“Here’s to the World of Chance,”
Brown cried without preamble.

The hall suddenly re-echoed with
the shout as other guests took it up.

Stanley found himself on his feet
with the rest, but he was strangely
shaken as he saw the tight-lipped
faces, around him. Suddenly the
guests had changed from jovial good
fellows into an army, deadly and
ready for battle. The hawk nose of
Levy protruded like that of a bird of
prey! ..The long yellow fingers of
Mathy were writhing like snakes over
the back of his chair. A tall, skinny,
crooked man at the end of the table
set up a neighing whinny of laughter
that made his flesh creep.

Brown was looking directly at him
as all remained standing, their
glasses drained.

“I do not want you to think,
Stan,” he said familiarly, “that your

coming here tonight was accidental.
It was caused” — he paused and
laughed lightly, his long white teeth
showing — “caused,” he repeated,
“what a queer word! — it was or-
dered by me as a direct insult to the
powers that be. We knew of your
rebellion. That’s why you felt the
slackening of the pressure upon you
lately.”

Without warning a bay of laughter
went up from the eleven guests, who
seemed to be enjoying themselves im-
mensely.

Abruptly the host crossed to the
side of the room, drew down an or-
namental rapier which had been
crossed with its mate above a mantel
and stalked to a great cobweb, which,
strangely enough, was gently sway-
ing between two tapestries at one
corner of the otherwise immaculate
room.

“Look,” he ordered sharply. “You
are a novice. This will be your
initiation. This represents the world
of cause and effect. He pointed to
the gleaming strands which met each
other with geometric precision. The

spider that meshed this ” Brown

stood silent a moment.

“Cause and effect!” he continued
after an interval. “Warden, you
stand in the presence of a company of
the free lances of the universe who
no longer are bound by cause and ef-
fect, even as you no longer are
bound.”

A snarling cheer greeted his words.

“Time was,” continued his host
when the noise had subsided, “time
was when the universe was as closely
knit as this tapestry — when every
joint fitted as neatly as do the meshes
of this web. But, ’ ’ with the point of
the rapier he tore a long, ragged slit
in the shimmering network, “that
has passed. You stand in the pres-
ence of those who are tearing at the
web of things as they are ; who are no
longer bound ; who are striving to
create a world of chance.

“You may have thought,” he con-
tinued, “that you alone could read

WEIRD TALES

768

the future. All those about you
could do so at one time. Could, I
say, for they too have broken the
chain, and for them now there is no
future. All is the present.

“Levy, here, carves his own way,
like this,” and Brown slashed another
hole in the web. “Mathy, too, does
his bit. Aviglon, that tall, skinny
chap, is ripping at the laws of gov-
ernment. Each in his own way is
breaking down, tearing apart this
foolish web which is life as ordinary
people know it.

“Strand by strand,” he illustrated
neatly with the point of the weapon,
“we are gnawing at the foundations
of things. Look at your web now —
torn and shattered. A few more re-
cruits, a few more blows and ”

With a long sweep of the sword he
brought the entire web to the floor
and trampled it under foot.

“You do not believe,” he contin-
ued gently. “No wonder. But you
will. Why, our first venture was a
masterpiece. What was it? The
World War, of course! Did you
not realize it? Did you not at the
time stand in amaze that a poor fool’s
bullet should plunge the world into
madness ?

“Ah, but it was cleverly done,” he
bowed to Levy. “So gently done. A
man madle mad conveniently — a
statesman stricken with apoplexy —
a king with a bad case of gastritis —

bankrupt baron trying to recoup
his fortune — a little twist here and
there — a faint change in the ordinary
current of life — and behold ”

There was no doubting this dy-
namic individual. Stanley found
himself still standing, half-filled glass
in hand, although the others had sat
down long ago.

“And now?” he breathed.

“Now? Look about you. Frenzied
speculation — nations at bay and
armed to the teeth — intrigue — rack-
eteering. The time is about ripe. A
few more willing, strong hands such
as yours and we will give the push

which will send this little civilization
toppling into oblivion. After that we
will be lords of creation in a world
ruled only by ourselves.”

“But how will you rule?” puzzled
the neophyte. “With the laws of the
world toppled, with what will you
control it ? Will it not crumble into
dust about you?”

“We will rule through will-
power,” snapped his host. “Look, it
is simple. I will demonstrate. ’ ’

He picked up a goblet of wine and
held it against the light so that it
threw amber shadows across the
snowy cloth.

And, as Stanley stared — it van-
ished !

“Try it,” said Brown. “I will help
you. It’s difficult at first.”

Stanley held up his glass, still
warm from his hand.

“Will it to vanish,” whispered
Brown.

As the younger man concentrated
on the bright object, wheels and
cogs in his mind seemed to mesh for
the first time. He likened the sen-
sation to that felt by a paralytic, who
after years of immobility finds that
he can once more move his arms.

And slowly the glass faded,
gleamed iridescently a moment like a
fairy bubble — and was gone.

‘ ‘ Simple, ’ ’ laughed Brown, evident-
ly elated. “The Rosierucians knew
the trick long ago, but didn’t apply
it.

“Look,” he continued. “I will
show you something more worth
while. Don’t cross your will with
mine or disaster may result. Just let
yourself go as if you were taking
ether.”

Brown leaned forward with his
hands on the table and smiled. As
he did so the walls about them melted
away. With such suddenness that
there was no feeling of movement the
whole table with its twelve guests
was transported to an elevation of
several thousand feet. Below them
( Continued on page 854)

Inthe\) crderfarid

AMONG the effects of one Joe
White, a beachcomber fisher-
JL JLman of Apalache Inlet, Flori-
da, was found the following papers,
together with others that fairly as-
sured of the correctness of his iden-
tity. As county prosecutor they were
given into my custody. Since their
publication at that time might have
reflected seriously upon certain
Northern state officials, I suppressed
them. However, since that date those
most concerned have died, and I am
giving to the world what is perhaps
the oddest and most terrible experi-
ence ever recorded by a living being.
It will be given in the words of its
chief actor:

I am known as Joe White. That is
not my real name. Most folks have
wondered why I stay here, and where

W. T. — 2

the money that keeps me comes from.
I am nothing if not accommodating.
So, since now I am gone beyond their
bothering, I will tell the curious the
whole tale. Not that they will believe
it, but it is the unvarnished truth
none the less.

If you remember back some ten
years ago you will remember the
Shelton murder case. You will re-
member that old Granny Shelton was
tortured, burned, and finally stran-
gled. All the evidence pointed to two
people, Joseph Shelton, her nephew,
and Slippery Mike Donelson, with
whom young Shelton had been seen
in company. You will remember that
they were convicted after a sensa-
tional trial, sentenced to the chair,
and were in fact executed the follow-
ing February. Well, I am Joe Shel-
ton.

769

1770

WEIRD TALES

Mike and I did the job. I was
desperate for money, and old granny,
who was as tight with me as she was
generous to others, refused it to me.
I was a weak young fool, and Slippery
Mike persuaded me that the old
woman would scare. Well, she didn’t.
Before I realized it Mike had so tor-
tured her that it would have meant a
long sentence at the least. So we
strangled her, stole what was in the
house and left. You know most of the
rest until the night of February 19th.

They posted the death watch on me
on February 17th. I was pretty ner-
vous, but kept up well. I’ll admit it
was a test of nerve when the lights
winked early in February for George
Nelson, and again the Friday before
my date when the negro boy, Wilky
Boone, sat in the chair.

I had seen my attorney, John Blake,
the morning of the 17th. Into his
hands I gave my will. Strange as it
may seem, I had inherited granny’s
money. On the 18th I ate a good
dinner, and a light supper, hnd was
sitting in the death cell waiting
for midnight.

The warden had told me that Mike
was to go first, as he was not holding
up very well, but, that I was to follow
as quickly as possible after him. I
was seated on my cot about eleven-
thirty when I heard a slight sound by
the cell door. I looked up quickly
and saw three men standing just in-
side. At first I thought it was the
guards waiting for me, but then I saw
that my death watch was still sitting
unconscious of their presence. From
what Warden Benton has told me
since, I know he was never conscious
of them.

The three motioned me to remain as
I was, and walked over to stand be-
side me. The first was a heavy-set,
brutal-looking chap, with one green
and one blue eye and a deep scar from
the corner of his mouth to his left
ear. He told me he was Cooky Bums,
who had died in the chair a year be-
fore. The second, a big strapping

Swede, said he was Ole Peterson, who
I knew had been executed the night
before I dressed in. The third was a
little, bestial-faced negro, Wilky
Boone. I knew him, for I had passed
his cell in coming in, and he had
shouted to me the week previous as he
was led to the chair that he would be
waiting for Mike and me. I stared at
them open-mouthed. Cooky it was
who did most of the talking.

“Well, Joe, you are due to bum,”
he said. “You see we know. , We
have ways of knowing that other
people don’t. We’ve come to see you
through. George Nelson, Bat Mug-
gins and Tony Caporetti are with
Slippery Mike. We are your com-
mittee.” (

I looked at them only half compre-
hending.

“You see, Joe,” Cooky went on,
“though the rest of the world don’t
know it, we chaps who have been
burned, or hung, or have had our
heads chopped off, make a custom of
seeifig the new ones through. We al-
ways send a sort of welcoming com-
mittee. Well, we are yours. We have
all been through the door there, we ’ye
all sat in the hot seat, we have all
been burned. So we know just what
you have coming.

“Now, Joe, just keep up your
-nerve. It ain’t half bad, really — not
very damned funny, for a fact, but no
worse than a good many other ways
of shufflin’ off. We’ll be with you, and
stick to the end. Then it’ll be your
turn to see Butch Schroeder through
next week. You see Wilky is here to
see you. We find a right fresh one sort
of helps keep up the pep ; one you ’ve
seen, and watched the lights wink for.
No doubt Slippery will be here in time
to see you through as well ; that is if
he gets loose 0. K. Sometimes they
used to be a little bit careless in there,
and a chap didn’t get loose very good.
That is rather unpleasant, but I ’ll say
for Billy Jones, he gives you a plenty
and does a good job.

“You see there is really two parts

IN THE BORDERLAND

to us here. If Bill does a good job,
why, you’re loose; if he don ’t you’re
only half loose, and have got an un-
pleasant hour or so getting the other
half free. But Bill always does a good
30b.”

"Just what is it like?” I asked
somewhat tremulously.

“Oh, it might be worse. Sittin’
there while the screws strap you in
is the worst. Bill is pretty decent
about not waitin’ after they step
back. When they let go of you, you
know you ain’t got more than a
breath or two before he gives you the
juice. Bill’s a good workman; he
gives you a hot shot the first crack.
That knocks you silly. Mostly it
loosens you up right now, and it’s all
over but the shoutin’. If it don’t he
gives you a second tingler that pretty
nigh shakes everything loose, and fol-
lows that with a third that will finish
you for fair if the others don’t.’ I
don’t know myself after the first shot.
Bill figured I was a pretty tough bird
and handed me forty-five hundred
right off the bat. I shook loose right
now. Ten seconds after I got it, it was
all over. Now Wilky here took all
three cracks. How about it, Wilky?”

The little darky grinned ruefully.

" 'Twa’n’t so hot,” he said. "Dat
white boy figgah’s Ah’s puhty small
an’ gives me on’y twenty-six hund’ed
foh de fust shot. Done shook me up
an’ knocked me plumb silly, but Ah
knowed hit when he tuhned hit off.
Couldn’t wiggle a toe, but Ah could
see and heah ev’ything. Second crack
was twelve fifty. Dat sho done tickled
me up right. Ah could feel mahse’f
kicking ’gin dem straps, an ’ Ah done
let out a grunt. Couldn’t see nuffin ’
till he done let loose agin. Ah was
done half loose den. Ah could see dem
white folks sittin’ thah lookin’ sohtah
green round dey gills. Reckon dat
grunt fotehed ’em. Den Billy give me
de thuhd shot. Thuhty-eight hund’ed
dat was. Golly! I done shook loose
right now, buddy, and dat was all.

"Billy hain’ neveh missed shakin’

’em loose sence he been doin’ de
’cutin’ heah. Ydu jes’ pin youah
faith in Billy, Joe. Dat las’ crack he
hands ’em ’ud shake a efalunt out’n
his cayhcass. ’ ’

"Does if hurt much?” I asked
them.

Wilky grinned.

“Sho hell when de fust crack hits
you, white boy. Dat sho knocks yo’
plumb silly. De rest ain ’ so bad. But
doan’ you git de idee hit’s any picnic,
’case ’tain’t. Main thing is she is sho
quick. Bingo! She hits yo’-all, you
squihm a bit, and den if yo’ lucky
dat’s all, an’ eff’n yo’-all Jiain’t so
lucky, why yo’ gotta take a couple
mo ’ shots maybe. Dey doan buhn -yo’
any moh, like dey did ol ’ Bunny
Coopah. Bunny was de fust heah.
Took seben shoots, Bunny did. Dey
didn’ know dey business dem days.
Bunny’ll tell yo’-all ’bout it some-
time. We doan’ let Bunny on ’ception
committees. He’d sho’ scare ’em eff’n
we did. But doan’ yo’ wo ’ey none.
Billy knows he business. Ah jes’
fooled him a little was all, but he done
got me jes’ de same.”

He turned to Cooky suddenly.

"Dey’s cornin’ atteh Slippery.
Hope Geo’ge kep’ his min’ off’n hit.
Mike was sho in a bad way. Dere dey
go.” '

I heard a slight commotion out in
the passage. Slippery was nearer the
door than I and so didn’t pass my
cell. My visitors seemed able to see
as well as though no walls existed.

"Slippery’s purty shaky, Wilky.
Think he’ll make it?”

"Sho will, Cooky. Dat Nelson boy
he sho wuhkin’ on Slippery. Ah see
dey got Johnson and Puhkins foh de
screws. Dey had me. Nice boys dose.
Dey sho do a quick job on de chair.
But if Bill ain’ mo’ careful he gwine
bum one o’ dem boys. I bet Puhkins
didn’t mo’ an’ get his han’ off’n me
when Billy tuhned on de juice. Deh,
dey is at de do’. Sho hits Slippery
doan’ hit. Good t’ing Johnson hab
him tight. Always did t ’ink Mike was

772

WEIRD TALES

yalleli. Lookit dem boys wuk ! John-
son’s frew fust. Deh, Puhkins is
puttin’ on de headpiece. Deh, he
jump back ! Dat Billy sho good ! ’ ’

As he spoke the lights gave the
familiar flicker, dimmed for a full
minute, then brightened. My com-
panions peered eagerly.

“Missed it,” said Cooky quietly.
“Only gave him three thousand.
Watch him this time.”

Again the lights flickered and
dimmed.

“That loosened him up. Half out,
Wilky. Billy’ll .give him forty-five
this time.”

A third time the light dimmed.

“Yep, forty-five. Huh!”

All three watched with intentness
but said nothing. The lights flashed
up.

“Is it all right?” I asked anx-
iously.

“They’re takin’ him out,” Cooky
replied. “There comes the stretcher.
It ain’t often we get two a night.
They’re rollin’ him back o’ the screen.
All set again. Billy’s lookin’ over the
chair. All 0. K. Well, Joe, buck up.
They’re cornin’.”

I t was a scant half-minute when the
procession reached my cell door —
the chaplain, the turnkey, and two
guards. The chaplain spoke.

“We are ready, Joe. The time has
come. ’ ’

I laughed a bit nervously and re-
plied huskily but steadily.

“All ready, chaplain.”

“Good boy,” said Cooky at my el-
bow while the other two nodded cheer-
fully. “You’re a damned sight
steadier than I was.”

One of the guards patted me on the
back encouragingly as the other slit
my trouser leg. Then we started.

“Keep up your nerve, Joe,” said
Johnson the guard. “If you need help
just lean on us. You are doin’ fine.
It won’t take long. Just a step. Just
step out with your head up. Only a
few feet now. Here’s the door.”

As he spoke they hurried me along
the corridor. It seemed but a moment
when we paused at the door leading
into the death chamber. It swung
open and I stepped in between the
guards. My eye fell at once upon the
chair in the middle of the room. It
was big and clumsy-looking, with the
cable leading from it that was to con-
vey my death stroke plainly visible.
The manacles on the arms and legs
seemed to gape for my limbs. I caught
my breath quickly, and felt the hands
of the two guards clutch the tighter.

“Steady, big boy,” came the voice
of Cooky. ‘ * It gets us all a bit to see
the damned thing. There, that’s bet-
ter. Get into it. The quicker you
are in the better. After you are down
it don’t matter much if your legs
shake.”

I was hurried across the few inter-
vening steps. I caught a hurried
glimpse of the white faces of the wit-
nesses and noted queerly enough that
they seemed rather sick. I even
grinned a bit. I heard a slight noise
behind the ehair, and just as I was
forced into it made out the little al-
cove with Billy Jones fingering his
switches. On my left was a second
small door, and a third large one in
front of me just behind the chairs of
the witnesses. Beside the second door
was a low screen and I could glimpse
the end of a white covered stretcher
behind it. There lay what was left of
Slippery Mike Donelson.

The guards were hurrying at their
work. I felt the straps tightened on
my wrists, elbows, ankles and knees.
A band came across my chest ; then I
heard Cooky again.

“Lean back, buddy. Perkins can’t
fasten the head-strap. ’ ’

I leaned back, and felt the strap,
still warm from Slippery Mike ’s fore-
head, pulled tight across my own.
The warmth reminded me of some-
thing.

“Where’s Slippery?”

I remembered he was to have met
me.

IN THE BORDERLAND

773

“Oh, he’s over there behind the
screen. Let yourself go, Joe. Here
comes the headpiece. It ’ll be all over
in a second now. Now grab a-hold
and hang on ! Here she comes V ’

The headpiece came to rest on my
head, I felt the cold grip of the leg
electrode and then

God! They hadn’t told me what
was to come. I would have been a
shivering, sniveling coward if they
had. The first shock was like a sud-
den blow, stunning for a second or so.
I saw a million colored lights wheeling
and bursting before my eyes, and then
a steady knife-like lancing pain that
seemed to permeate my whole being.
At every alternation of the current it
cut. I tried to scream but couldn’t. I
know now I did groan, and that some
of the witnesses fainted. For a full
minute it continued, then as suddenly
stopped. Oh, the relief of that sur-
cease !

For some reason the surgeon ap-
proached 1 me with the stethoscope.
From some source I gathered my will-
power together. I feared he would
pronounce me dead, and that I would
be taken to the autopsy table a living
being. I could hear my voice, an un-
natural droning guttural thing :

“My God, I am not dead! Don’t
turn it on again!’’

That voice really came through. I
saw the witnesses shudder and the doc-
tor stepped back. Then Billy gave
me the second jolt. That was five
thousand five hundred volts, the
heaviest charge ever given a prisoner.
Again the lancing pains. I could feel
my body straining and tossing against
the straps, and I tried to scream. The
reports said I groaned audibly twice.
Then suddenly the pain eased as the
current was shut off. It had lasted
two minutes three seconds, the
heaviest and longest shock ever given.
Somehow I seemed to be free from the
chair and standing by my limp body.
Then I heard Cooky ’s voice deep with
awe.

‘ ‘ Gawd,‘ what a shot ! An’ only half

out! That boy is hell for punish-
ment!”

Then the voice of Wilky.

“No mo’ dan dat Slippery. He ain’
cleah out yit, poll devil ! ’ ’

So that was why Slippery had not
met me as promised ! Then came the
third shock. It was not quite as bad
as the others ; the pain seemed duller,
though still terrible. I could still feel
my body tossing against the straps.
Then it was shut off. My body lay
limp in the straps. The surgeon ap-
proached and placed his instrument.
Again I tried to tell them I was not
dead ; but I was helpless. He listened
and then turned to say solemnly :

‘ ‘ I declare this man dead ! ’ ’

T he straps were unloosened and
I was placed on a second stretcher
and rolled behind the screen beside
Slippery Mike. Beside his body stood
a faint wraith, like Mike yet imlike
him. I found I could not speak,
though I tried. Beside him were the
forms of three men, and the three with
me now joined them.

“Ain’t that hell?” spoke Cooky.'
“Two in one night and didn’t shake
ary one loose. Well, we can’t help ’em
now. Our boy Joey took all Billy
could give and begged for more. ’ ’
“Well, Slippery took a plenty, ’ ’ re-
sponded one of the others. ‘ ‘ Two tough
babies, I’ll tell a world. Well, then,
for the autopsy room. That’ll shake
’em loose ! ’ ’

The six were gone.

Just what had happened I still am
not sure. Possibly the old Egyptian
idea of the duality of the soul is right.
From Cooky ’s words it would seem so.
Possibly the “ka” is attached to the
body and although the true sold may
leave it it is not truly dead until the
“ ka ” is freed. Mike and I were num-
bered w r ith the “undead” yet were not
of the living. I could feel, even more
acutely than in life, the pressure of
my body on the stretcher and the
coarse covering over my face.

After some minutes Perkins and

774

WEIRD TALES

Johnson returned, opened the side
door and rolled us into a second room.
Mike they lifted upon the autopsy
table, where they stripped his cloth-
ing from him. My body they also
stripped, and covered us both again
with the sheets.

Then through a second door came
the surgeons, Dr. Benson, Dr. White,
and Dr. Swanson. They were in
operating-gowns, with rubber-gloved
hands, and each carried a small in-
strument case. These they opened
and placed upon a little side-table, ar-
ranging the instruments calmly and
chatting while they did it.

I could see a look of terror upon the
faintly discernible features of Mike’s
wraith. Calmly and deliberately Dr.
Benson made the first incision from
the inner point of Slippery’s left
shoulder across to the right. The
wraith that was Slippery writhed and
the face contorted, his mouth opened
as though in a long-drawn-out scream.
As deliberately Benson cut from chin
to pelvis, laying the abdomen open, I
could see Slippery’s bowels, still
warn and smoking. Again the poor
wraith writhed in agony, lvhile his
hands tried futilely to ward off the
gleaming knife as it tore through the
flesh.

Talking casually, Benson grasped
his bone-cutters and began to snip the
ribs on each side of the chest cut. They
were reflected back, and the still warm
chest of Slippery was exposed to sight.
I could see in its midst the heart, a
heart that seemed to quiver and
shrink as Benson touched it and began
to massage it.

“Queer thing, Swanson,” he said
laughing. “I’ve been told that occa-
sionally massage will start the heart
for a few beats. Never have seen it
myself, but I always try it. By Jove,
there it goes!”

I could see the stilled heart of Mike
pick up its pumping. The poor wraith
sank down in agony and grew fainter
as it beat a few beats. Then it ceased,
and Slippery’s groveling form beeame

clearer. It quivered all over a mo-
ment while the doctors watched in
interested silence. Then Swanson
laughed shortly.

“Look out, Benson, he’ll come to on
you. By George, is he dead or not?”

Benson laughed.

“Dead as a herring, Swanson.
Merely muscular contraction; tissue
reaction, nothing more. ’ ’

The dissection went on. Bit by bit
as the tissue was exposed and removed
the three commented on its condition.
Swanson alone seemed a bit squeam-
ish, remarking he didn’t care for au-
topsy on still warm corpses. To Ben-
son it had become a commonplace
affair. Slippery, poor chap, was in a
pitiable condition. The prolonged
agony of the hour’s slow dismember-
ment had marked his wraith-features
with the same terrible marks that a
similar torture would have produced
on his face had he been a living, sen-
tient being. Every cut of the knife,
each organ torn loose, every muscle
wrenched out, each bone disjointed,
had produced agony as keen as upon
living flesh, with no blessed loss of con-
sciousness to put a period to the
agony.

Benson picked up a small saw and
prepared to open the skull. The poor
wraith’s hand came up to clutch his
head as though to ward off the saw.
Once more he dropped writhing to the
floor, groveling and twisting with con-
torted face and twisted limbs. The
skull cap came off, and the keen knives
of the surgeons began to tear off the
membranes and cut into the sub-
stance.

Suddenly the groveling Slippery
ceased to writhe. The twisted face
smoothed out. I noticed that the dim
form grew suddenly clearer. It stood
now, beside his dismembered body,
smiling. Then he turned to walk to-
ward me.

“My God, that was sure hell!”

Mike was speaking to me.

“Praise be I’m finally shook loose.
I’m sorry for you, Joe. I hope they;

IN THE BORDERLAND

775

make it snappy for you. That is sure
hell. The chair was a pleasure beside
it. Pray your damnedest that Benson
don ’t try to start you up again. Good-
bye, till you’re loose, Joe. I don’t
think I could stand watchin’.”

He was gone. Trembling with an-
ticipated anguish I watched the three
unconscious ghouls chattering over
the poor twisted brain-stuff of Slip-
pery Mike.

\XT ell, it finally ended. They bustled
’ ’ the remnants of Mike back into
his gutted shell, except for the frag-
ments they retained to satisfy their
curiosity. They moved him off the
table, and the three lifted my limp
form i upon it. I tried in vain to fight
them off. My hand met nothing, or
rather it seemed to go through their
solid flesh as though it were not there.
My body, still warm and limp, would
not respond to my will. I was
stretched out, and Benson was reach-
ing for his knife. I shut my eyes;
then a sharp lancing pain from shoul-
der tip to shoulder tip, as the keen
blade cut through skin and flesh.

I writhed, I tried to scream, and
then — a million multicolored lights
burst and wheeled before my eyes, the
world spun crazily, thunderous rush-
ing winds roared in my ears — I was
lying nude and helpless on the table,
but again a breathing, sentient being.
I groaned, and my thick tongue tried
to mumble words.

The three stepped back in horror.
Swanson seized my wrist, while White
fumbled for his stethoscope.

“There is a pulse, rather weak
but gaining,” exclaimed Swanson.
“Respiration is beginning. I’ll be
damned ! ’ ’

‘ ‘ Good God, he ’s not dead ! ”

Benson stepped back, his eyes di-
lated with horror.

“But I’ll take my oath that there
was no sign of heart action when I
pronounced him dead ! Why — why —
doctor, he took three of the heaviest

shocks ever given in this prison !
What can we do?”

The three looked at each other in
doubt. Then White turned to Ben-,
son.

“By God, Benson, I’m no state ex-
ecutioner. If you expect me to finish
him, or stand by while you do, you’ve
guessed wrong!”

“My God, no!” shouted Benson;
then turning to Swanson, “Go for the
warden.”

In the five minutes before the war-
den came I had begun to breathe nat-
urally and to recover muscular con-
trol. He looked pretty sick when ho
came. Painfully I gasped out that
I was not dead. He turned non-
plussed to the doctors.

“Well, this is a pretty mess ! Came
to on the table, eh ? And he is semi-
conscious, more’s the pity. Will he
recover, doctor?”

Swanson shook his head doubtfully.

“You can’t say for sure, but my
idea is he will. What do you two
think?”

“Undoubtedly, Swanson,” replied
White shortly.

The warden looked angrily at them.

“Look here, you three, what haves
you been up to? Artificial respiration,
or what? This is no joke. This man
is supposed to have been executed ; ho
has been, and has been officially pro-
nounced dead. The witnesses are gone,
the executioner is gone, and only God
and the Supreme Court know what
his status is. I doubt that I can
legally re-execute him, and I’ll be
damned if I’ll take the responsibility
for doing so. Benson, you pronounced
him dead ; it will be your official neck
that goes for reviving him.”

“But, good God, warden!” pro-
tested Benson. “As God is my wit-
ness, we did nothing. Ten minutes
ago we finished with Mike and put
Joe on the table. I made the first in-
cision — you can see it there now,
bleeding — and the damned corpse
groaned! Then he came to. I tell

776

WEIRD TALES

first, but even Warden Benton agreed
that my description of Cooky was per-
fect, even to his little mannerisms of
walk and movement. And I had never
seen Cooky alive. They finally be-
lieved my tale. , The attorney-general
was of the opinion that since I had
been legally executed once, and had
been legally pronounced dead before
witnesses, the state was through with
me. I stayed with the warden under
cover for a couple of months, and
then on the suggestion of my old at-
torney, Blake, I was released to come
down here. Blake has furnished me
my money from old Granny Shelton ’s
estate, which I had left to him for his
efforts in my behalf.

That is all. Believe it or not, this
is a true tale. You may see the scar
from Benson ’s knife across my shoul-
ders, or may ask any of the people
who know the truth.

*##*•#*

It may be noted in closing that the
scar was plainly visible, and that the
story has been corroborated by those
who knew of it at the time.

SONNET OF DEATH

By EDITH HURLEY

I woke at midnight with a sense of doom
And terror that no reasoning could dispel ;

Far off I heard the tolling of a bell,

And felt a horror in the darkened room.

It was as though I rested in a tomb,

Or lay a prisoner in some airless cell.

In trembling squares the pallid moonlight fell,

And eery shadows gathered in the gloom.

An ancient fear possessed my very soul,

And crushed my thoughts and took my gasping breath ;

In vain I struggled and in vain I cried,

For weary Slumber came, and softly stole
Over my heart, and, as the candle died,

I walked, a stranger, in the Halls of Death.

you he was dead, dead as Judas Iscar-
iot! No pulse, no heart, no respira-
tion, no reaction of life in him. If he
wasn’t dead, I never saw a dead man.
Why, man, he took fifty-five hundred
volts for over two minutes! If that
won’t kill, then juice never kills. Ask
the other two. They saw everything
here. They have been, with me every
minute until he groaned.”

The warden looked at the others,
who nodded agreement.

‘‘Well, what’s to be done?” he fi-
nally asked. .

‘‘That’s up to you, warden,” re-
plied Benson.

“It’s a damned pity he wasn’t cut
up too far to come back. Well, no, I
won’t say that either, I’ll say it’s a
damned pity it happened. I can’t re-
execute him ; I doubt I could legally,
and I’ll resign before I try it. Poor
devil, do you suppose he knew all the
time? Oh, Lord, what a mess! I’m
phoning the governor and the attor-
ney-general. If they tell me to try it
again, I’ll resign.”

Well, they revived me, and I told
my story, They didn’t believe it at

PLANET *f
r loir

WiLFORD

ALL6-N

A MONG the world’s mysteries of
4% supernatural terror there are
JL j k. few which modern science will
not laugh to scorn. But there is one
of which it will not even speak, let
alone admit publicly that there is any
basis for the tale. And as for smiling
at its mention — try it out some time
on one of the few scientists who know !
Lycanthropy, vampirism, demonology,
all such terrors of the ancient world,
have long been outlawed, set down as

“Then I will fight and play and fly with the shapes that course
out there where the sun is no more than a star."

products of the over-terrorized imag-
ination of our ignorant forebears, the
nightmares of the early race.

But in the case of the most hor-
rible mystery of all, if you could back
one of the informed scientists into a
metaphorical corner and, pledging
secrecy, get at what science actually
knows of what occurred, you would
be astonished, and more — much more.
I learned by accident, and ever since
I have been oppressed by strange sen-
sations of horror. And I never knew
all the truth. No man ever did and
lived on, a human being capable of
telling it.

777

778

WEIRD TALES

At the most, science knows but little
of the Thing. To begin with, it knew,
as the world at large knows, that since
interplanetary navigation has become
a routine matter, ships have disap-
peared occasionally, just as in pre-
ceding eras airplanes and ocean liners
dropped from sight without apparent
reason, leaving no word of the fate
which struck them down, although
equipped with the most dependable
means of communication. A ship went
out and never returned. Nothing fur-
ther was ever heard of it, no one had
news of it after a certain moment,
when everything was well and there
was apparently no reason to suspect
an impending tragedy. The ships
simply vanished.

Naturally the laboratory staff of the
Interplanet was interested, doing its
best to fathom the mystery, but get-
ting nowhere. And then Hobart
Smallin, staff computer of the great
concern, made his extraordinary an-
nouncement. There was disbelief from
all quarters, but not for long. Proof
came with dramatic suddenness.

Smallin sat quietly at his desk while
the Interplanet heads filed in one by
one. He seemed to have collapsed into
himself, his chin sunken down to the
support of his chest, his eyes staring
into the chart before him as if already
he felt the encroaching influence of
the Thing. He said nothing, until
MacAndrews, the Interplanet presi-
dent himself, entered solemnly. He
said little then, except, at a nod from
MacAndrews, to indicate that the
others should approach and look upon
the chart which he had prepared.

“What do you see there, gentle-
men?” his voice sounded harshly.

Arthur, transport manager, raised
his eyes in surprize.

“Why — just the orbit of one of the
planets.”

“Take another look, ” Smallin mur-
mured grimly. “Which planet?”

“It — it’s between Saturn and
Uranus,” Arthur stammered as his

eyes returned to take in the details.
‘ ‘ There isn ’t any planet there. ' ’

“You are right,” Smallin agreed.
“Those dots represent, not the posi-
tions of any known planet, but of the
Interplanet ships which have van-
ished, as of the last moment that their
whereabouts was known to us. But
here is the problem, gentlemen.” His
voice fell to a dusky whisper. “As
Arthur noticed, when plotted they are
grouped along a curve which resem-
bles that of a planet. The resemblance
goes farther. If we group the posi-
tions in two parts, compute normal
place, from each group, and compute
the resulting orbits, the two come out
identical — which is overwhelming
proof that the entire list of missing
transports vanished by coming under
the influence of something which has
a planetary motion about the sun. ’ ’

“But there is no planet there,”
Arthur objected. “Even so small a
planet as one ten miles in diameter
would have been picked up before
now. And the chance of thirty-three
ships colliding with an object less than
ten miles in diameter is ridiculously
small. One might, although the
chance would be remote. Two might
by a most unusual freak of the prob-
abilities. But more than two — the
chances against it would be a trillion
to one. And thirty-three ! That is my
idea of a perfect impossibility, if there
is such a thing.”

“But the ships did vanish,” Mac-
Andrews broke in. “And they van-
ished in the positions which are indi-
cated on that chart.”

“It’s clear enough,” Branton, of
the detectives, had reached his conclu-
sion. “It’s banditry. Some gang of
outlaws are operating from a base on
one of the Saturnian moons. ’ ’

“I thought of that at first,” Smal-
lin nodded gloomily. “But — in that
case the progress of the spot of attack
through space should keep pace with
that of Saturn. The chances against
it’s assuming the exact progression of
a planet acting under the laws of grav-

THE PLANET OF HORROR

779

ity at the appropriate distance is so
small as to be nil. ’ ’

“Maybe,” Brant on grunted indif-
ferently. “I don’t know about the
mathematics. But if it is so improb-
able, what’s to prevent the fellows
from knowing as much as you do
about its improbability, from plotting
what would be the orbit of a planet
revolving about the sun at the chosen
distance, and staging their attacks
along the computed orbit for the pur-
pose of puzzling us ? ”

“That is possible,” Smallin ad-
mitted. “But — I don’t think that
represents the facts.”

“Then what are the facts?” Bran-
ton sneered.

“I — I’m not ready to say yet.
They would be unbelievable. I want
to hear the opinions of some of the
others first. ’ ’

“No use wasting time,” Brant on
announced. “The thing is plain
enough. I’m off for the defense de-
partment at Washington. God!” His
enthusiasm rose. “This will be the
biggest thing ever. The President will
give me a whole fleet to go after the
bandits with!”

“Wait!” Mac Andrews command-
ed. “We have one more proof, if any
is needed. When I got Smallin ’s
note I could not believe, and yet there
was a transport, No. 28, approach-
ing the danger zone at that moment.
I did not know its exact position, but
was aware that it was close enough
to be in danger. I had a message sent
to direct it to change course and
circle the spot where the chart indi-
cates the danger lies at this moment.
The message, gentlemen, was not, ac-
knowledged ! That was why I was late.
For I hurried then to the chartroom.
The pathway of 28 had reached the
spot a half-hour before my message
had been sent ! No. 28 is lost ! And,
when computations can predict ahead
of time, we have no choice but to be-
lieve that they are entirely reliable.
Now, with Dr. Smallin, I want the

opinions of all of you, and we will
thresh this out now.”

The opinions of all coincided with
that already expressed by Branton,
and the decision was reached that an
expedition must be sent out to clear
the region of the band of outlaws who
were presumably operating. Only
Smallin held out against the others,
and as he admitted that he had no
material proof to back his weird be-
lief, it was disregarded.

“Go home and rest, Smallin,” Mac-
Andrews laid his hand soothingly on
the bowed shoulders of the computer.
“You have been working too hard.
This has been a strain, and your brain
needs a rest. We can’t afford to have
you crack that head of yours, Small-
in.”

npHE men trooped out, Brandon to
hop triumphantly to Washington,
the others to return to their various
posts. Number 28 was lost! There
were now thirty-four missing ships.
Smallin sat alone, staring into the
chart again.

Acting vigorously but secretly, the
government equipped a fleet with the
latest devices of offense, the newly
perfected annihilating ray foremost
among them.

For three weeks the punitive ex-
pedition drove uneventfully on, re-
porting its progress every hour in a
routine manner. Then it began to
draw near the zone of danger. On the
day when it was due to arrive, the
officials of the Interplanet, together
with the Secretary of Defense, were
closeted in the spacious office of the
latter at the capital. The fleet was
sending bulletins at five-minute inter-
' vals, and all were watching them
eagerly as they were flashed onto the
screen. Then came one, unbelievable
in its import.

“Number 87, on scouting duty, has
vanished. No sound or sign to indi-
cate conflict. The ship simply faded
into nothingness!”

Then in rapid staccato, “Power

780

WEIRD TALES

shut off — brakes working! The next
ship has vanished ! Numbers 45 and
127, following in parallel, also gone!
No sign of struggle! Brakes on full
power, but we are still drifting up
against the spot where they disap-
peared. We are ” The message

was interrupted abruptly.

A moment later the story was taken
up by one of the rear-guard, which
had managed to swerve off in time
to avoid the fate of the leaders.

“All but three ships lost. Leader
lost. Awaiting instructions. For your
information there was no sign of
enemy. Ahead is uninterrupted view
of sky, yet other ships have vanished
as if they plunged into and through
an opaque screen. How can there be
an opaque screen if the stars beyond
show through so clear? There is some-
thing wrong out here. It is something
— terrible. A peculiar feeling — psy-
chic distress, horror — noted by all.
We await instructions.”

The secretary looked about the table
at the horror-stricken faces. Mac-
Andrews nodded at the unspoken
question. The cabinet officer turned
to a messenger who was staring
goggle-eyed.

“Message! Return at once. Signed
Burleigh. ’ ’

Then he turned to the others again,
terror showing through his wide-
breached eyes.

“Gentlemen, we have met defeat.
By what ? ” he mouthed the awful
question which was burning in the
brains of all.

But the story was not yet told. Be-
fore the instructions could get on
their way another message came, and
the men leaped to their feet in un-
controllable horror at its import.

“Something — terrible — happen-
ing,” the words came as though
stuttering. Then they burst into
frantic speed. “We can no longer
control our movements. I have just
managed to tear the Thing loose for
a second, but I know it will clutch my
brain again with its frozen fingers!

It has already caught the others, and
they are driving the ships straight
toward the hell where the first ships
vanished. I know it now! It’s hell!
And the cold devil of hell is after me
again. He ’s clawing at the base of my
brain! Clawing! Clawing with tal-
ons , of nothing and ice! Freez ”

The message of terror came to a sud-
den end.

There was nothing but silence in
the big room. Eyes told what words
could not formulate. And there was
Hobart Smallin, still seated, staring
as though his eyes were focused on
that far point in space where a noth-
ingness that froze and tore at the
brains of humans drew them to itself
in a hell of nothingness and horror.

T t was difficult to hush the thing up,

for even soldiers have relatives,
and the vanished men were the cause
of many inquiries. But it had to be
done, and it was done in the way
governments have done the same be-
fore.

One thing had been demonstrated.
Whatever it was, the destroyer had
not operated in the expected manner.
Only Smallin seems to have had any
idea of the form the Thing would take
in striking, and so incredible was , it
that he had not dared to utter his
thoughts until the awful happening
itself had lent them authority. He
knew well that the mere mention of
them without that fearful backing
would have put him in an asylum as
hopelessly insane.

The enemy had not operated as a
bandit group would have done. If it
had possessed the secret of the anni-
hilating ray there would have been
flashes to mark the end of each ship
as the destroying beam played on it.
But there had been no suggestion of
such, no sign of danger until the in-
credible had taken place. Each ship
had simply vanished, swallowed up.
Swallowed by what? The only clue
to that was in the despairing message
from the last three ships, which had

THE PLANET OF HORROR

781

halted and come under the mysterious
influence gradually. It was no clue,
for it only told of horror, of nothing-
ness that took the form of devilish
cold, of fingers that, freezing, im-
bedded themselves in the brain, while
having no material form. Such clues
were useless to men who were sane.

Hobart Smallin was like a man who
was dying and yet could not die. He
went on, a shrunken wreck, but driv-
ing relentlessly, sparing neither him-
self nor the workmen on a car which
he had persuaded Mac Andrews to au-
thorize. Its mechanism was sealed in
such a way that once started it was
beyond the control of the operator.
No matter what insane notion he
might take to stop or turn, he would
be powerless to change its course. A
control was devised which would,
after steering the ship out to a des-
ignated spot, turn and bring it back
to earth again, if the ship itself sur-
vived intact. In that ship the com-
puter purposed to explore the region
of death and bring back information
of some kind, if it were mechanically
pqssible to do so.

Then, one night, he sealed himself
in the car and was gone. MacAndrews
had pleaded with him, but without
effect.

"Look at me,” Smallin had de-
manded. "My physician gives me
just six months to live. Do you think
I can last that long ? ’ ’

MacAndrews had looked, and his
lips had begun to mouth a comfort-
ing disclaimer, but he had stopped in
its midst, aware that his eyes had be-
trayed his real conviction. ‘ ‘ But it’s
the strain of this thing that is killing
you, Hobart. As soon as it is settled
you will be all right again. You
know that’s true. You are taking it
too hard.”

Again Smallin ’s only response was
a question. "What chance is there
of clearing it up within six months?”
he asked.

And again MacAndrew’s eyes sup-
plied the answer.

"No,” Smallin muttered. "It’s got
me, just as it did those others. I-
don’t know how, but it has. If you
could see what I do at times! This
way there is a bare chance I can do
something. I’m dead, anyway. Good-
bye!”

And he had swung quickly aboard,
locking and barring the door behind
him, then pouring into the crack be-
tween the door and jgmb the quick-
setting cement that was to seal him in.
And a moment later the ship had
lifted.

No one of the few who were aware
of its going ever thought to see it
again. But they were mistaken.

npHREE months later, moving under
A automatic control, the car ap-
peared over the earth, where it came
under the influence of the Inter-
planet’s landing controls and was
guided slowly toward the big field,
settling down as gently as if obeying
the hand of Smallin on the controls
within. The staff, assembled by the
astonishing news, rushed out to meet
it.

And then a strange thing occurred.
The whole group halted in the same
instant, as though an invisible hand
had reached out from the car to bar
their way. The actual agent, how-
ever, was not a hand, but a sense of
impending horror which hit all with
devastating effect. While the group
drew back in that excess of terror,
there came an explosion within the
car, and the door was blown outward.
A moment later Smallin staggered
out.

It was only because they knew
Smallin had been within that they
knew it was he. And at that sight the
group broke and fled — fled screaming,
yelling, clawing madly at unnamablo
horror. Smallin halted, stood there,
indescribable. It seemed that no hu-
man could have altered so and still
possessed life. That, possibly, was the
key. He may not have possessed hu-
man life such as we know it. And yet

782

WEIRD TALES

the man was alive in some way. He
did move, and the integrity of his
original purpose still lived to actuate
him and control his movements and
speech.

Seeing that he was standing quiet-
ly, a few of those in whom the element
of iron was most pronounced turned
and forced themselves back toward
him, against the frantic opposition of
every instinct of their beings. To the
relief of that instinct Smallin halted
then with a gesture at a distance of
some forty paces.

“For God’s sake!” his words came
horribly. ‘‘Don’t come closer! It
might get you! If its tentacles once
clutch your brain, no power can get
them loose!”

‘‘What! What ” Mac Andrew

was stammering, the first time in a
life of decisive action. ‘‘There is
nothing. You — imagine it. There is
absolutely nothing ! ’ ’

“That’s the damnableness of it,”
the weird Thing answered. * ‘ There is.
It’s fast to me like a rubber band
that has been stretching and stretch-
ing and as it stretched pulling and
sucking on my brain! I can’t hold
against it much longer. Go into the
car. The story is there. But this is
what I must say, and I had to show
you myself to make you believe.
Never allow anyone near that cursed
spot. Keep away. Nothing — noth-
ing can fight That ! ” A note of wilder
terror entered his voice. “Run!
Run!” he shrieked. “I can’t hold it
off. If I touch you — oh, God ! Keep
off! Keep off!”

The group was split by then, and
fleeing desperately. MacAndrew
dared a look behind, and fled more
horrified for what he saw — or didn’t
see. For where the thing that had
been Smallin had just stood, there was
bare ground. No human speed could
have taken him the distance to the
nearest concealment in the second.
And, as a search soon proved, he had
not hidden either in the car or among
the surrounding buildings. He had

vanished, as the missing ears had
gone.

It was an hour before the car was
entered and the diary was found. The
contents of the diary are a part of the
mystery, for it was destroyed by its
soul-sick readers. Of the four who
read it, MacAndrews lasted the long-
est — a few weeks more than a year.
Nervous breakdown, collapse from
overwork and strain — so the physi-
cian’s pronouncements ran. I signed
MacAndrews’ death certificate my-
self. • ■

So even science does not know what
the diary contained. But the Inter-
planet routes all travel wide of that
red orbit traced on all of its charts
without explanation. The strict
orders which the government has is-
sued that all travelers must avoid the
zone is usually believed to mean that
the Department of Defense has set it
aside as a military reservation, on
which it conducts dangerous experi-
ments and maneuvers.

I was with MacAndrews when he
died. And I do not want to see an-
other such passing.

He went completely out of his head.
He imagined awful things — or was it
that the resistance which he had built
in his mind against even thinking of
them had broken down in the last
moments? I wish I knew. I would
feel better if I thought that raving
was only delirium. But — then I re-
call how it checked up with what
went before.

“Burleigh,” he mumbled the De-
fense Secretary’s name, “here is the
diary. I — haven’t read it yet. Want-
ed your moral support,” he cackled
terribly.

“It is unbelievable,” his voice
erupted again, shakily. “Human
mind — can not picture. But if you
can not you can do nothing. And if
you can you can also — do nothing.
Nothing!” His voice sank for a mo-
ment, and I leaned forward to see if
the end had come. I had another

THE PLANET OP HORROR

783

patient to whom time meant much,
hut yet I could not leave this dying
man.

— world founded on horror as
ours is on atoms,” he mumbled on.
"Atoms of horror, inhabited by hor-
ror of all shapes. A billion horrors,
clawing — sucking — freezing the
spine.”

His faeial muscles were working
horribly, but I could not tear my gaze
away.

"A planet, but not of rock. A
Thing of stuff without material exist-
ence. Horror become matter — invis-
ible. — all-powerful. Onee men on
earth saw forms of nothingness that
rode, twisting horribly, the clouds and
the winds clucking with loathsome
glee, grinning hellishly, as they roved
the night suckled by the deadly moon.
I understand now! A planet of hor-
ror revolved about the earth, an at-
tendant moon. Pace with the farther
moon it kept, consorting with it in its
play of hell, reaching and sucking out
the minds of those who exposed them-
selves to its grip. Those old horror
legends! God! How horrible their
basis is ! ”

He was carried away with the surge
of the thing.

• “I recognize it now,” he screamed,
"that strange prickling feeling which
starting at the base of the brain runs

up and down the spine and circles the
brain when horror grips a man. It is
a relic of days when the Things like
This clutched through the dark to in-
sert their freezing talons in the gray
matter of the medulla oblongata^
God!” His voice was beginning to
fail. ‘‘What a relief it — get out of
this car— back — free then of this —
frozen sucking that bums through—
my brain. It will go when I— no
longer — oppose it.”

His voice rose in one last ecstasy of
horror.

‘ ‘ Then I will fight and play and fly
with the shapes that course out there
where the sun is no mom than a star.
Shapes you have never seen, and pray
to God you — never see ! I will exist
forever with the Horrors, a Horror
myself, coming and going — shrieking
and howling — sucking at the throats
of indescribable Horror, and feeling
its suck at my throat! Whirling in
dark that only hides from human
eyes the joys I will know! Joys of
clawing — of unmentionable things —
of ”

He said more — a few words, before
he finally died. But hardly printable.
Except where they are imprinted ter-
ribly in my mind. I hope no one is
present when I die. I npght forget
myself and repeat all that MacAn-
drews did.

THE LAST
INCANTATION

By CLARK ASHTON SMITH

M ALYGRIS the magician sat in
the topmost room of his
tower that was builded on a
conical hill above the heart of Sus-
ran, capital of Poseidonis. Wrought

of a dark gtone mined from deep in
the earth, perdurable and hard as the
fabled adamant, this tower loomed
above all others, and flung its shadow
far on the roofs and domes of the

784

WEIRD TALES

city, even as the sinister power of
Malygris had thrown its darkness on
the minds of men.

Now Malygris was old, and all the
baleful might of his enchantments, all
the dreadful or curious demons under
his control, all the fear that he had
wrought in the hearts of kings and
prelates, were no longer enough to as-
suage the black ennui of his days. In
his chair that was fashioned from the
ivory of mastodons, inset with terrible
cryptic runes of red tourmalins and
azure crystals, he stared moodily
through the one lozenge-shaped win-
dow of fulvous glass. His white eye-
brows were contracted to a single line
on the umber parchment of his face,
and beneath them his eyes were cold
and green as the ice of ancient floes;
his beard, half white, half of a black
with glaucous gleams, fell nearly to
his knees and hid many of the writh-
ing serpentine characters inscribed in
woven silver athwart the bosom of his
violet robe. About him were scat-
tered all the appurtenances of his art ;
the skulls of men and monsters ; phials
filled with black or amber liquids,
whose sacrilegious use was known to
none but himself ; little drums of vul-
ture-skin, and crotali made from the
bones and teeth of the cockodrill,
used as an accompaniment to certain
incantations. The mosaic floor was
partly covered with the skins of enor-
mous black and silver apes ; and above
the door there hung the head of a uni-
corn in which dwelt the familiar de-
mon of Malygris,. in the form of a
coral viper with pale green belly and
ashen mottlings. Books were piled
everywhere: ancient volumes bound
in serpent-skin, with verdigris-eaten
clasps, that held the frightful lore of
Atlantis, the pentacles that have
power upon the demons, of the earth
and the moon, the spells that trans-
mute or disintegrate the elements;
and runes from a lost language of
Hyperborea, which, when uttered
aloud, were more deadly than poison
or more potent than any philtre.

But, though these things and the
power they held or symbolized were
the terror of the peoples and the envy
of all rival magicians, the thoughts of
Malygris were dark with immitigable
melancholy, and weariness filled his
heart as ashes fill the hearth where
a great fire has died. Immovable he
sat, implacable he mused, while the
sun of afternoon, declining on the
city and on the sea that was beyond
the city, smote with autumnal rays
through the window of greenish-yel-
low glass, and touched his shrunken
hands with its phantom gold, and
fired the balas-rubies of his rings till
they burned like demonian eyes. But
in his musi'ngs there was neither light
nor fire; and turning from the gray-
ness of the present, from the darkness
that seemed to close in so imminently
upon the future, he groped among the
shadows of memory, even as a blind
man who has lost the sun and seeks
it everywhere in vain. And all the
vistas of time that had been so full of
gold and splendor, the days of tri-
umph that were colored like a soaring
flame, the crimson and purple of the
rich imperial years of his prime, all
these were chill and dim and strange-
ly faded now, and the remembrance
thereof was no more than the stirring
of dead embers. Then Malygris
groped backward to the years of his
youth, to the misty, remote, incred-
ible years, where, like an alien star,
one memory still burned with unfail-
ing luster — the memory of the girl
Nylissa whom he had loved in days
ere the lust of unpermitted knowledge
and necromantic dominion had ever
entered his soul. He had well-nigh
forgotten her for decades, in the
myriad preoccupations of a life so
bizarrely diversified, so replete with
occult happenings and powers, with
supernatural victories and perils; but
now, at the mere thought of this slen-
der and innocent child, who had loved
him so dearly when he too was young
and slim and guileless, and who had
died of a sudden mysterious fever on

THE LAST INCANTATION

785

the very eve of their marriage-day,
the mummy-like umber of his cheeks
took on a phantom flush, and deep
down in his icy orbs was a sparkle like
the gleam of mortuary tapers. In his
dreams arose the irretrievable suns of
youth, and he saw the myrtle-shaded
valley of Meros, and the stream Ze-
mander, hy whose ever-verdant marge
he had walked at eventide with
Nylissa, seeing the birth of summer
stars in the heavens, the stream, and
the eyes of his beloved.

Now, addressing the demonian viper
that dwelt in the head of the unicorn,
Malygris spoke, with the low monot-
onous intonation of one who thinks
aloud :

“Viper, in the years before you
came to dwell with me and to make
your abode in the head of the uni-
eom, I knew a girl who was lovely and
frail as the orchids of the jungle, and
who died as the orchids die. . . .
Viper, am I not Malygris, in whom
is centered the mastery of all occult
lore, all forbidden dominations, with
dominion over the spirits of earth and
sea and air, over the solar and lunar
demons, over the living and the dead?
If so I desire, can I not call the girl
Nylissa, in the very semblance of all
her youth and beauty, and bring her
forth from the never-changing shad-
ows of the cryptic tomb, to stand
before me in this chamber, in the eve-
ning rays of this autumnal sun?”

“Yes, master,” replied the viper, in
a low but singularly penetrating hiss,
“you are Malygris, and all sorcerous
or necromantic power is yours, all in-
cantations and spells and pentaeles
are known to you. It is possible, if
you so desire, to summon the girl
Nylissa from her abode among the
dead, and to behold her again as she
was ere her loveliness had known the
ravening kiss of the worm.”

“Viper, is it well, is it meet, that I
should summon her thus ? . . . Will
there be nothing to lose, and nothing
to regret?”

The viper seemed to hesitate. Then,

in a more slow and measured hiss:
“It is meet for Malygris to do as he
would. Who, save Malygris, can de-
cide if a thing be well or ill?”

“In other words, you will not ad-
vise me?” the query was as much a
statement as- a question, and the viper
vouchsafed no further utterance.

M alygris brooded for awhile, with
his chin on his knotted hands.
Then he arose, with a long-unwonted
celerity and sureness of movement
that belied his wrinkles, and gathered
together, from different coigns of the
chamber, from ebony shelves, from
caskets with locks of gold or brass or
electrum, the sundry appurtenances
that were needful for his magic. He
drew on the floor the requisite cir-
cles, and standing within the center-
most he lit the thuribles that con-
tained the prescribed incense, and
read aloud from a long narrow scroll
of gray vellum the purple and ver-
milion runes of the ritual that sum-
mons the departed. The fumes of the
censers, blue and white and violet,
arose in thick clouds and speedily
filled the room with ever-writhing in-
terchanging columns, among which
the sunlight disappeared and was
succeeded by a wan unearthly glow,
pale as the light of moons that ascend
from Lethe. With preternatural slow-
ness, with unhuman solemnity, the
voice of the necromancer went on in
a priest-liice chant till the scroll was
ended and the last echoes lessened and
died out in hollow sepulchral vibra-
tions. Then the colored vapors cleared
away, as if the folds of a curtain had
been drawn back. But the pale un-
earthly glow still filled the chamber,
and between Malygris and the door
where hung the unicorn’s head there
stood the apparition of Nylissa,' even
as she had stood in the perished years,
bending a little like a wind-blown
flower, and smiling with the unmind-
ful poignancy of youth. Fragile, pal-
lid, and simply gowned, with anemone .
blossoms in her black hair, with eyes

786

WEIRD TALES

that held the new-born azure of ver-
nal heavens, she was all that Malygris
had remembered, and his sluggish
heart was quickened with an old de-
lightful fever as he looked upon her.

“Are you Nylissa?” he asked —
“the Nylissa whom I loved in the
myrtle-shaded valley of Meros, in the
golden-hearted days that have gone
with all dead eons to the timeless
gulf?”

“Yes, I am Nylissa.” Her voice
was the simple and rippling silver of
the voice that had echoed so long in
his memory. . . . But somehow, as
he gazed and listened, there grew a
tiny doubt — a doubt no less absurd
than intolerable, but nevertheless in-
sistent: was this altogether the same
Nylissa he had known? Was there not
some elusive change, too subtle to be
named or defined, had time and the
grave not taken something away — an
innominable something that his magic
had not wholly restored? Were the
eyes as tender, was the black hair as
lustrous, the form as slim and supple,
as those of the girl he recalled? He
could not be sure, and the growing
doubt was succeeded by a leaden dis-
may, by a grim despondency that
choked his heart as with ashes. His
scrutiny became searching and exi-
gent and cruel, and momently the
phantom was less and less the perfect
semblance of Nylissa, momently the
lips and brow were less lovely, less
subtle in their curves; the slender
figure became thin, the tresses took on
a common black and the neck an or-
dinary pallor. The soul of Malygris
grew sick again with age and despair
and the death of his evanescent hope.
He could believe no longer in love

or youth or beauty, and even the
memory of these things was a dubit-
able mirage, a thing that might or
might not have been. There was noth-
ing left but shadow and grayness and
dust, nothing but the empty dark and
the cold, and a clutching weight of in-
sufferable weariness, of immedicable
anguish.

In accents that were thin and qua-
vering, like the ghost of his former
voice, he pronounced the incantation
that serves to dismiss a summoned
phantom. The form of Nylissa melted
upon the air like smoke and the lunar
gleam that had surrounded her was
replaced by the last rays of the sun.
Malygris turned to the viper and
spoke in a tone of melancholy reproof :

“Why did you not warn me?”

‘ ‘ W ould the warning have availed ? ’ ’
was the counter-question. ‘ ‘ All knowl-
edge was yours, Malygris, excepting
this one thing; and in no other way
could you have learned it.”

“What thing?” queried the magi-
cian. “I have learned nothing except
the vanity of wisdom, the impotence
of magic, the nullity of love and the
delusiveness of memory. . . . Tell me,
why could I not recall to life the same
Nylissa whom I knew, or thought I
knew?”

“It was indeed Nylissa whom you
summoned and saw,” replied the
viper. “ Your necromancy was potent
up to this point; but no necromantic
spell could recall for you your own
lost youth or the fervent and guileless
heart that loved Nylissa, or the ardent
eyes that beheld her then. This, my
master, was the thing that you had to
learn. ’ ’

7/>e PRIESTESS

c/eMVOW

FFFT by (S6ABURY

I hh I qumn

J ULES DE GRANDIN replaced
his Sevres tea-cup on the tabouret
and brushed the ends of his tight-
ly waxed blond mustache with the tip
of a well-manicured forefinger. From
the expression on his little, mobile
face it was impossible to say whether
he was nearer laughter than tears.
“And the lady, chere Madame,” he
inquired solicitously, “what of her?”

“What, indeed?” echoed our host-
ess. Plainly, it was no laughing mat-
ter to Mrs. Mason Glendower, and I

“A moi, Sergent; a moi, les gendarmes; I
have them!”

sat in a sort of horrified fascination,
expecting momentarily to see the mul-
tiple-chinned, florid society dictator
dissolve in tears before my eyes. A
young woman’s tears are appealing,
an old woman’s are pathetic, but a
well-past-middle-aged, plump dow-
ager’s are an awful sight. Flabby,
fat women quiver so when they weep.

“What, indeed?” she repeated, all

three of her chins trembling ominous-
ly. ‘ ‘ It would have been bad enough
if she’d been a respectable shop-girl,
or even an actress, but this — oh, it’s
too awful, Dr. de Grandin; it’s ter-
rible ! ’ ’

My worst fears were realized. Mrs.
Mason Glendower wept copiously and
far from silently, and her chins and
biceps, even her fat wrists, quivered

787

788

WEIRD TALES

like a pyramid of home-made quince
jelly on a Thanksgiving dinner table.

“Tch-tch,” de Grandin made a
deprecating click with the tip of his
tongue against his teeth. “It is de-
plorable, Madame. And the young
Monsieur, your son, he is, then, en-
tirely smashed upon this reprehensibly
attractive young woman — you can not
dissuade him ? ’ ’

“No!” Mrs. Mason Glendower
dabbed at her reddened eyes with a
wisp of absurdly inadequate cambric.
“I’ve tried to appeal to his family
pride — liis pride of ancestry, I’ve
even had Dr. Stephens in to reason
with him, but it’s all useless. He just
smiles in a sort of sadly superior way
and says Estrella has shown him the
light and that he pities our blindness
— our blindness, if you please, and
our family pew-holders in the First
Methodist Church since the congrega-
tion was organized!

“Oh, Dr. Trowbridge” — she turn-
ed imploringly to me — “can’t you
suggest something? You’ve known
Raymond all his life, you know' what
a clean, manly, good boy he’s alw'ays
been — it’s bad enough for him to be
set on marrying the young person,
but to have her change his religion,
drag him from the faith of his fathers
into this heathenish, outlandish cult
— oh, it seems, sometimes, as though
he’s actually losing his senses! If
he’d ever drunk or caroused or in-
clined toward wildness it would bo
different, but ” And her emo-

tion overcame her, and her w'ords
were smothered beneath air avalanche
of sobs.

“Tiens, Madame Glendower,” de
Grandin remarked matter-of-factly,
“a man may love liquor and have his
senses sometimes, but if he love a
woman — helas, his case is hopeless.
Only marriage remains, and even that
sometimes fails to cure.”

For a moment he regarded the sob-
bing matron w r ith a thoughtful stare,
then: “It may be Dr. Trowbridge and
I can reason w r ith the young Monsieur

to more purpose than you or the good
pastor, ’ ’ he suggested. ‘ ‘ In my coun-
try we have a saying there are three
sexes — men, women and clergymen.
A headstrong young man, over-proud
of his budding masculinity, is apt to
treat advice from mother or minister
alike with contemptuous impatience.
The physician, on the other hand, is
in a different position. He is a man
of the world, a man of science, with
body, parts and passions like other
men, yet with a vast experience of the
penalties of folly. His words may
w T ell be listened to when those of
women and priests would meet only
with disdain. ’ ’

I sat in open-mouthed astonish-
ment, at his temerity. To his logical
Gallic mind the wisdom of his advice
was obvious, but though he had lived
among us several years, he had not yet
learned to what heights of absurdity
the Mother-cult has been raised in
America, nor did he understand that
it is the conventional thing to regard
any woman, no matter how ignorant
or inexperienced, as endowed with pre-
ternatural wisdom and omniscient
foresight merely because she has at
some time fulfilled the biological func-
tion of race-perpetuation. And Mrs.
Mason Glendower ’s thought-processes
were, I knew, as conventional as a
printed greeting card.

“You mean,” the lady gasped, a
sort of horrified incredulity replacing
the grief in her countenance — “you
mean you actually think a doctor can
have more influence with a son than
his pastor or his mother?”

“Perfectly, Madame,” he replied
imperturbably. Her scandalized as-*
tonishment was lost on him ; it was as
though she had asked whether in his
opinion novocain were preferable to
cocam as an anesthetic in appen-
dectomy.

“Well ” I braced myself for

the coming storm, but, amazingly, it
failed to materialize. ‘ ‘ Perhaps you Ye
right, Dr. de Grandin,” she conceded
with a sudden strange meekness.

THE PRIESTESS OP THE IVORY FEET

*' ‘Whatever you do, you can’t fail any
Wore than Dr. Stephens and I have
failed.”

She smiled wanly, with a trace of
embarrassment. “You’ll find Ray-
mond in his room, now, ’ ’ she informed
us, “but I doubt he’ll see you. This
is the time for his ‘silence,’ as he calls
it, and — — ”

“Eh bien, Madame” the little
Frenchman ehuckled, “lead us to his
sanctuary. We shall break this silence
of his, I make.no doubt. Silence is
golden,, as your so glorious Monsieur
Shakespeare has said, but a greater
than he has said there is a time for
silence and a time for speech. This,
I think, is that time. But yfes. ’ ’.

A brazen bowl of incense burned in
Raymond Glendower’s room, its
Cloying, heady sweetness almost stun-
ning us as we entered uninvited after
half a dozen pleading calls and sev-
eral timid knocks on the door by his
mother had failed to evoke a response.
Raymond perched precariously on a
low, flat-topped stand similar to those
used for supporting flower-pots, his
legs crossed, feet folded sole upward
upon his calves, his hands resting
palm upward in his lap, the finger tips
barely touching. His head was bowed
and his eyes closed. So far as I
could see, his costume consisted of a
flowing white-muslin robe which might
have been a. folded sheet loosely belted
at the waist, and a turban of the same
material wound about his brow. Arms,
legs, feet and breast were uncovered,
for the robe hung open at the front,
revealing his chest and the major por-
tion of his torso. At first glance I was
struck by the pallor of his face and the
marked concavity of his cheeks ; plain-
ly the boy was suffering from primary
starvation induced by a sudden dimi-
nution of diet.

“What’s he been eating?” I whis-
pered to his mother as the seated
youth paid no more attention to our
advent than he would have given the
buzzing of a trespassing fly.

789

“Fruit,” she whispered back,
“fruit and nuts and raisins, and very
little of each. It’s against the disci-
pline of the sect to eat anything killed
or cooked. ”

“U’m,” I murmured. “How long
has this been going on?”

“Ever since he met that woman—
nearly two months,” she returned.
“My poor boy’s fading away before
my eyes, and ”

“S-s-sh !” I warned. Like a sleeper
awakened, young Glendower had
opened his eyes and wriggled from his
undignified perch like a contortionist
unwinding himself from a knot.

“Oh, hullo, Dr. Trowbridge,” he
greeted, crossing the room to take my
hand cordially. If he felt any embar-
rassment at being caught thus he con-
cealed it admirably. “Pleased to meet
you, Dr. de Grandin,” he acknowl-
edged my introduction. ‘ ‘ Be with you
in half a sec. if you’ll wait till I get
some clothes on. ’ ’

We retired to the drawing-room,
and in a few minutes the young man,
normally attired in a well-tailored blue
suit, joined us. His mother excused
herself almost immediately, and Ray-
mond glanced from de Grandin to me
with a humorous twist of his well-
formed lips.

“All right, Dr. Trowbridge,” he in-
vited, “you may fire when ready. I
suppose Mother’s called you in to show
me the error of my ways. She had
Stephens in the other day, and the
reverend old fool will never know how
near he came to assassination. He be-
gan by singsonging at me and ended!
by attacking Estrella’s character.
That’s where I draw the line. If he
hadn’t been a preacher I’d have
tossed him out on his neek. Just a
little warning, gentlemen,” he added
pleasantly. “Go as far as you like in
quoting Joshua, Solomon and Moses
at me — I won ’t kick if you throw in a
few passages from Deuteronomy for
good measure, but one word against
Estrella and we fight — physicians

790

WEIRD TALES

don’t share clerical immunity, you
know.”

‘‘By no means, Monsieur,” de
Grandin cut in quickly. ‘‘We have
not had the honor of the young lady’s
acquaintance, and he who condemns
without having seen is a fool. Also,
we have no wish to scoff at your faith.
Me, I am a deep student of all reli-
gions, and the practises of Yoga and
similar systems interest me greatly.
Is it possible that we, as serious stu-
dents, might be permitted to see some
of the outward forms of your so
interesting cult?”

The boy warmed to his request as
a stray dog responds to a friendly
pat upon the head. Plainly he had
heard nothing but complaints and
naggings since he became involved in
the strange religion which he pro-
fessed, and the first remarks by an
outsider which did not imply criti-
cism delighted him.

‘‘Of course,” he answered en-
thusiastically; ‘‘that is, I’m almost
sure I can arrange it for you.” He
paused a moment, as though consider-
ing whether to take us further into
his confidence, then:

‘ ‘You see, Estrella is Exalted High
Hierophant of the Church of Heaven-
ly Gnosis, and though I am unworthy
of the honor, her Sublimity has
deigned to look on me with favor” —
there was a reverential tremor in his
voice as he pronounced the words —
‘‘and it is even possible she may re-
ceive a revelation telling her we may
marry, as ordinary mortals do, though
that is more than I dare hope for.”
Again his words trembled on his lips,
and we could see he actually fought
for breath as he spoke, as though his
wildly beating heart had expanded in
his breast and pressed his lungs for
space.

‘‘U’m?” de Grandin was all polite
attention. ‘‘And will you tell us
something of the society’s history,
young Monsieur t”

‘‘Of course,” Raymond answered.
‘‘The Heavenly Gnosis is the latest

manifestation of the Divine All which
underlies everything. For thousands
of years mankind has struggled blind-
ly through the darkness, always seek-
ing the Divine Light, always failing
in its quest. Now, through the revela-
tions of our Supreme Hierophant,
the Godhead shall be made plain.
Just twenty years ago the great boon
came into the world, when Estrella,
the Holy Child, was bom. Like
Mohammed and that other prophet
whom men call Jesus, she was of
humble parentage, but the Supreme
Will follows Its own inscrutable de-
signs in such matters — Buddha was a
prince, Confucius was a scholar,
Mohammed a camel-driver and Jesus
the son of a carpenter. Estrella is the
daughter of a laborer. She was bom
in a workman’s shanty beside the
tracks of the Santa Fe; her father
was a section foreman and her mother
a cook and washerwoman for the
men; yet when the Holy Child was
barely old enough to walk the cattle
and horses in the fields would kneel
before her and touch their noses to
the earth as she toddled past.

‘‘She was less than a year old when
one of the workmen in her father’s
gang came upon her sitting between
two great rattlesnakes while a third
reptile reared on its tail before her
and inclined its head in adoration.
The man would have killed the snakes
with his long-handled shovel, but the
babe, who had never been heard to
speak before, rebuked him for his
impiety, reminding him that all
things are God’s creatures, and that
he who takes life of any kind on any
pretext is guilty of supreme sacrilege
in usurping a function of Deity, and
must expiate his sin through countless
reincarnations.”

‘‘Parbleu, you astonish me!” said
Jules de Grandin.

‘‘Yes,” Raymond continued with
all the recent convert’s fervor, ‘‘and
from that day Estrella continued to
prophesy and reveal truth after great
truth. At her behest her parents gave

THE PRIESTESS OP THE IVORY FEET

791

up eating the remains of any living
thing and ceased desecrating the
divine element of fire by using it to
cook their food. Her father abandoned
his work and went to live in the
desert, where day by day, in the
silence of the waste places, new
revelations came to the Holy Child
who has condescended to cast her
glorious eyes on me, the most unwor-
thy of her worshippers.”

“Mordieu, you amaze me!” de
Grandin declared. * ‘ And then ? ’ ’

“ When her period of preparation
was done, her mother, who had com-
mitted all the \vondrous things she
foretold to writing, brought her East
that the teeming cities of the seaboard
might hear the words of truth from
her own divine lips.”

“Cordieu, you overwhelm me!” de
Grandin assured him. “And have
you found many converts to the faith,
Monsieur ?”

“N-no,” Raymond admitted, “but
those who have affiliated with us are
important individually. There was
Miss Stiles, a member of one of the
state’s oldest and wealthiest families.
She was one of the first to be con-
verted, and distinguished herself by
her great ardor and acts of piety.
She also brought a number of other
influential people into the light,
and ”

“May one inquire where this so
estimable lady may be found now?”
de Grandin asked softly. “I should
greatly like to discuss ”

“She has passed through her final
incarnation and dwells forever in the
ineffable light emanated by the
Divine All,” young Glendower broke
in. “She was summoned from battle
to victory in the very moment of per-
forming the supreme act of adora-
tion, and ”

“In fine, Monsieur,” de Grandin
interrupted, “one gathers she is no
moi*e — she is passed away; defunct;
dead?”

“In the language of the untaught
— yes,” Raymond admitted, “but we

who have heard the truth know that
she is clothed in garments of ever-
lasting light and resides perpetual-
ly ”

“Mais oui ” de Grandin cut in a
trifle hastily, “you are undoubtlessly
right, mon ami. Meantime, if you will
endeavor to secure us permission to
meet these so fortunate ones who bask
in the sunlight of Mademoiselle’s
revelations, we shall be most greatly
obliged. At present we have im-
portant duties which call us elsewhere.
Yes, certainly.”

“■yx/ELL, what about it?” I in-
* » quired as we drove homeward.
“I’m frank to admit I didn’t know
what he was driving at half the time,
and the other half I had to sit on
my hands to keep from clouting the
young fool on the head.”

The little Frenchman laughed de-
lightedly. ‘ ‘ It is the love of the petit
c Men run wild, my friend,” he told
me. * ‘ Some young men when smitten
by it turn to poetry; some attempt
great deeds of derring-do to win their
ladies’ favor; this one has swallowed
a bolus of undigested nonsense, pla-
giarized by an ignorant female from
half the religions of the East, up to
the elbow.”

“Yes, but it has a serious aspect,”
I reminded. “Suppose he married
that charlatan, and ”

“IIow wealthy is the Glendower
family?” he interrupted. “Is the
restrained elegance in which they live
a mark of good taste, or a sign of
comparative poverty?”

“Why,” I replied, “I don’t think
they’re what you could call rich. Old
Glendower is reputed to have left a
hundred thousand or so; but that’s
not considered much money nowa-
days, and ”

“But what of Monsieur Raymond’s
private fortune?” he demanded.
“Does he possess anything outside his
expectancy upon his mother ’s death ? ’ ’

“How the devil should I know?” I
answered testily.

792

WEIRD TALES

“Precisement,” he agreed, in no
way offended by my petulance. “If
you will be good enough to drop me
here, I shall seek information where
it can be had reliably. Meantime, I
implore you, arrange with your peer-
less cook to prepare a noble dinner
against the time of my return. I shall
be famished as a wolf. ’ ’

“VK/here the deuce have you

' ’ been?” I demanded as he
entered the dining-room just as Nora
McGinnis, my household factotum,
was serving dessert. “We waited
dinner for you till everything was
nearly spoiled, and ”

“Alas, my friend, I am desolated,”
he assured me penitently. ‘ 1 But con-
sider, is not my punishment already
sufficient? Have I not endured the
pangs of starvation while I bounced
about in a sacre taxicab like an egg-
shell in a kettle of boiling water? But
yes. They are slow of movement at
the courthouse, Friend Trowbridge.”

“The courthouse? You’ve been
there? What in the world for?”

“For needed information, to be
sure, ’ ’ he returned with a smile as he
attacked his bouillon with gusto. “I
learned much there which may throw
light on what we heard this after-
noon, mon vieux.”

“Yes?”

“Yes, certainly; of course. I dis-
covered, by example, that a Miss
Matilda Stiles, who is undoubtlessly
the same pious lady of whom the
young Glendower told us, passed
away a month ago, leaving several
sadly disappointed relatives and a
last will and testament whereby she
names one Mademoiselle Estrella
Hudgekins her principal legatee.
Furthermore, I discovered that a cer-
tain Matilda Stiles, spinster, of this
county, did devise by deed, previous
to her sad demise, several parcels of
excellent valuable real estate in and
near the city of Harrisonville to one
Timothy Hudgekins and Susanna
Hudgekins, his wife, as trustees for

Estrella Hudgekins. Furthermore, I
found on record several bills of sale
whereby numerous articles of intense-
ly valuable personal property — di-
amonds, antique jewelry, and the like
— were conveyed outright by the said
Matilda Stiles to the aforesaid Es-
trella Hudgekins — parbleu, already I
do mouth the legal jargon uncon-
sciously, so many instruments of
transference I have read this after-
noon ! ’ ’

“Well?” I asked.

“No, my friend, it is not well; I
damn think it is exceedingly unwell.”
He helped himself to a generous por-
tion of roast duckling and dressing
and refilled his glass with claret.
“Attend me, carefully, if you please.
The young Monsieur Glendower was
to receive in his own right a hundred
thousand dollars from his father’s
estate upon attaining his majority.
He passed his twenty-first birthday
last month, and already the attorneys
have attended to the transfer of the
funds. What think you from that?”

“Why, nothing,” I returned. “I’d
an idea Raymond would succeed to
part of the property before his
mother ’s death. Why shouldn ’t he ? ”

“Ah, bah!” de Grandin replen-
ished his plate and glass and regard-
ed me with an expression of pained
annoyance. “Can not you see, my
old one? The conclusion leaps to the
eye ! ”

“It may leap to yours,” I replied
with a smile, “but its visibility is
zero, as far as I’m concerned.”

“X/'ou two will be the only guests
I outside the church tonight, ’ ’ Ray-
mond Glendower warned as we drove
toward the apartment hotel where the
high priestess of the Church of the
Heavenly Gnosis resided with her
parents, “so if you’ll — er — try not
to notice things too much, you know
I’ll be awful obliged. You see —
er ” he floundered miserably, but

THE PRIESTESS OF THE IVORY FEET

793

de Grandin came to his rescue with
•ready understanding.

“Quite so, mon vieux,” he agreed.
“It is like this: devout members of
the Catholic faith are offended when
mannerless Protestants enter their
churches, stare around as though they
were at a museum, and fail to genu-
flect as they pass the altar; good
Protestants take offense when ill-bred
Catholics enter their churches and
glance around with an air of super-
cilious disdain, and the Christian
visitor gives offense to his Jewish
brethren when he removes his hat in
their synagogues, n’est-ce-pas?”

“That’s it!” the boy agreed.
“You’ve got the idea exactly, sir.”

He leaned forward and was about
to embark on another long and tire-
some exposition of the excellence of
his faith’s tenets when the grinding
of our brakes announced we had ar-
rived at our destination.

The corridor of the Granada Apart-
ments flashed with inharmonious
colors like a kaleidoscope gone crazy,
and I shook my head in foreboding.
The house was not only screamingly
offensive to the eye, it was patently
an expensive plaee in which to live,
and the prophetess must draw heavily
on her devotees’ funds in order to
maintain herself in such quarters.

An ornate lift done in the ultra-
modernistic manner shot us skyward,
and Raymond preceded us down the
passage, stopping before a brightly
polished bronze door with' the air of
a worshipper about to enter a shrine.
We entered without knocking andi
found ourselves in a long, narrow
hall with imitation stone floor, walls
and ceiling. A stone table with an
alabaster glow-lamp at its center was
the only piece of furniture. A huge
mirror let into the wall and sur-
rounded by bronze pegs did duty as
a cloak-rack. All in all, the place was
about as inviting as a corridor in the
penitentiary.

The room beyond, immensely large
and almost square in shape, was

mellowly lighted by a brass floor-lamp
with a shade of perforated metal; its
floor was covered with a huge Turkey
carpet; the walls were hung with
Persian and Chinese rugs. Beneath
the lamp, its polished case giving back
subdued reflections, like quiet water
at night, was a grand piano flanked
by two tall Japanese vases filled to
overflowing with long-stemmed red
roses. Near the opened windows,
where the muted roar of the city
seeped upward like the crooning of
distant waves, was grouped a number
of chairs no two of which were mates.
Several guests were already seated,
talking together in hushed tones like
early arrivals at a funeral service.

Oddly, though it was really a most
attractive apartment, that rug-strewn
room struck a sinister note. Whether
it was the superheated atmosphere,
the dimly diffused light or the vague
reminiscence of incense which min-
gled with the roses’ perfume I do not
know, but I had a momentary feeling
of panic, a wild desire to seize my
companions by the arms and flee be-
fore some unseen, evil presence which
seemed to brood over the place bound
us fast as a spider enmeshes a luck-
less fly.

Near the piano, where the lamp-
light fell upon her, stood the high
priestess of the cult, Raymond’s
“Holy Child,” and despite my pre-
conceived prejudices, I felt forced to
admit the cub had good excuse for his
infatuation.

Her extremely decollete gown of
black velvet, entirely devoid of orna-
mentation, clung to her magnificent
figure like the drapery to the Milo
Venus and set off her white arms and
shoulders in startling contrast. Above
the pearl-white expanse of bosom and
throat, the perfectly molded shoulders
and beautifully turned neck, her face
was set like an ivory ikon in the
golden nimbus of her hair. She was
tall, beautifully made and supple as
a mountain lioness. A mediaeval
master-painter would have joyed in

794

WEIRD TALES

her physical perfection, but assuredly
he would not have painted her with a
child at her breast or an aureole sur-
rounding her golden head. No, her
beauty was typical of the world, the
flesh, and the franker phases of love.

Her upper lip was fluted at the
comers as if used to being twisted in
a petulant complaint against fate, and
her long amber eyes slanting up-
ward at the comers like an Asiatic’s,
were cold and hard as polished topaz;
they seemed to be constantly apprais-
ing whatever they beheld. She might
have been lovely, as well as beautiful,
but for her eyes, but the windows of
her soul looked outward only; no one
could gaze into them and say what
lay behind.

“Bout d’un rat mort,” whispered
Jules de Grandin in my ear, “this
one, she is altogether too good-look-
ing to be entirely respectable, Friend
Trowbridge!’’ j-

The slow smile with which she
greeted Raymond as he bowed al-
most double before her somehow
maddened me. “You poor devil,” it
seemed to say, “you poor, witless,
worshipping Caliban; you don’t
amount to much, but what there is
of your body and soul that’s worth
having is mine — utterly mine !” Such
a smile, I thought, Circe might have
given the poor, fascinated man-hogs
wallowing and grunting in adoring
impotence about her table. As for
Raymond, plain, downright adula-
tion brought the tears to his eyes as
he all but groveled before her.

As de Grandin and I were led for-
ward for presentation I noted the
figures flanking the priestess. They
were a man and woman, and as
unlovely a pair as one might meet
in half a day’s walk. The man was
like a caricature, bull-necked, bullet-
headed, with beetling brows and
scrubby, bristle-stiff hair growing
low above a forehead of bestial
shallowness. Though his face was
hard-shaven as an actor’s or a
priest’s, no overlay of barber’s

powder could hide the wiry beard
which struggled through his skin.
His evening clothes were well tai-
lored and of the finest goods, but
somehow they failed to fit properly,
and I had a feeling that a suit of
stripes would have been more in
place on him.

The woman was like a vicious-
minded comic artist’s conception of
a female politician, short, stocky, ap-
parently heavy-muscled as a man
and enormously strong, with a wide,
hard mouth and pugnaciously pro-
truding jaw. Her gown, an expen-
sive creation, might have looked
beautiful on a dressmaker’s lay
figure, but on her it seemed as out
of place as though draped upon a
she-gorilla.

These two, we were made to under-
stand, were the priestess’ parents.

Estrella herself spoke no word as
de Grandin and I bowed before her,
nor did she extend her hand. Serene,
statue-still, she stood to receive our
mumbled expressions of pleasure at
the meeting with an aloofness which
was almost contemptuous.

Only for a fleeting instant did her
expression change. Something, per-
haps the gleam of mockery which
lurked in de Grandin ’s gaze, hard-
ened her eyes for a moment, and I
had a feeling that it would behoove
the little Frenchman not to turn his
back on her if a dagger were handy.

Raymond hovered near his divin-
ity while' de Grandin and I pro-
ceeded to the next room, where a
long sideboard was loaded with
silver, dishes containing dried fruits,
nut-kernels and raisins. The French-
man sampled the contents of a dish,
then made a wry face. “Name of the
Devil,” he swore, “such vileness
should be prohibited by statute !” '

“Well?” I asked, nodding ques-
tioningly toward the farther room.

‘ 'Parbleu, no ; it is far from such ! ’ ’
he answered. “Of Mademoiselle la
Pretreuse I reserve decision till later,
but her sire and dam — mordieu, were

THE PRIESTESS OF THE IVORY FEET

795

I a judge, I should find them guilty
of murder if they came before me on
a charge of chicken-theft! Also, my
friend, though their faith may pre-
clude the use of cooked or animal
food, unless Jules de Grandin ’s nose
is a great liar, there is nothing in
their discipline which forbids the use
of liquor, for both of them breathe
the aroma of the gin-mill most
vilely.”

Somewhat later the meeting as-
sumed a slightly more sociable as-
pect, and we were able to hold a
moment’s conversation with the
prophetess.

“And do you see visions of the in-
effable, Mademoiselle f” de Grandin
asked earnestly. “Do you behold
the splendor of heaven in your
ecstasies?”

“No,” she answered coldly, “my
revelations come by symbols. Since
I was a little girl I’ve told my
dreams to Mother, and she interprets
them for me. So, when I dreamed a
little while ago that I stood upon a
mountain and felt the wind blowing
about me, Mother went into her
silence and divined it portended we
should journey East to save the
people from their sins, for the moun-
tain was the place where we then
lived and the wind of my dream was
the will of the Divine All, urging
me to publish His message to His
people. ’ ’

“And you believe this?” de Gran-
din asked, but with no note of in-
credulity in his tone.

“Of course,” she answered simply.
“Iam the latest avatar of the Divine
All. Others have come before — Bud-
dha, Mithra, Mohammed, Confucius
— but I am the greatest. By woman
sin came upon mankind ; only by
woman can the burden be lifted
again. These others, these male
hierophants, showed but a part of
the way ; through me the whole road
to everlasting happiness shall be
made plain.

‘ ‘Even when I was a tiny baby the

beasts of the field — even the poison
serpents of the desert — did reverence
to the flame of divinity which burns
in me!” She placed her hand
proudly on her bosom as she spoke.

“You remember these occasions of
adoration?” de Grandin asked in a
sort of awed whisper.

“I have been told — my Mother re-
members them, ’ ’ she returned shortly
as she turned away.

“Grand Dieu,’’ de Grandin mur-
mured, “she believes it, Friend
Trowbridge; she has been fed upon
this silly pap till she thinks it truth!”

A ll through the evening we had
noticed that the guests not only
treated Estrella with marked respect,
but that they one and all were care-
ful not to let themselves come in con-
tact with her, or even with her
clothes. Subconsciously I had noted
this, but paid no particular attention
to it till it was brought forcibly to
my notice.

Among the guests was a little,
homely girl, an undersized, underfed
morsel of humanity who had probably
never in all her life attracted a second
glance from any one. Nervous, flut-
teringly attentive to the lightest
syllable let fall by the glorious being
who headed the cult, she had kept as
close to Estrella as was possible with-
out actually touching her, and as we
were preparing to take our departure
she came awkwardly between Timothy
Hudgekins and his daughter.

Casually, callously as he might
have brushed an insect from his
sleeve, the man flipped one of his
great, gnarled hands outward, all but
oversetting the frail girl and pre-
cipitating her violently against the
prophetess.

The result was amazing. Making
no effort to recover her balance, the
girl slid to the floor, where she
crouched at Estrella’s feet in a per-
fect frenzy of abject terror. “Oh,
your Sublimity,” she cried, and her
words came through blenched lips on

WEIRD TALES

trembling breath, “your High Sub-
limity, have pity ! I did not mean it ;
I know it is forbidden to so much as
touch the hem of your garment with-
out permission, but I didn 't mean it ;
truly, I didn’t! I was pushed, I

— I ” her words trailed away to

soundlessness, and only the rasping
of her terrified breath issued from
her lips.

“Silence!” the priestess bade in a
cold, toneless voice, and her great
topaz eyes blazed with tigerish fury.
“Silence, Sarah Couvert, Go— go and
be forever accursed ! ”

It was as though a death-sentence
had been pronounced. Utter stillness
reigned in the room, broken only by
the heart-broken sobs of the girl who
crouched upon the floor. Every mem-
ber of the cult, as though actuated
by a common impulse, turned his
back upon her, and weeping and
alone she left the room to find her
wraps.

Jules de Grandin would have held
her costly evening cloak for her, but.
she gestured him away and left the
apartment with her face buried in her
handkerchief.

“QANG du Viable, my friend, look
l3 at this, regardez-rom !” cried de
Grandin next morning at breakfast as
he thrust a copy of the morning paper
across the table.

“COUVERT HEIRESS A SUICIDE”

I read in bold-faced type :

“The. body of Miss Sarah Couvert, 28,
heiress to the fortune of the late Herman
Couvert, millionaire barrel manufacturer,
who died in 1919, was found in the river
near the Canal street bridge early this
morning by Patrolman Aloysios P. Ma-
honey. The young woman was in evening
dress, and it was said at her house when
servants were questioned that she had at-
tended a party last night at the apartment
of Mr. and Mrs. Timothy Hudgekins in the
Granada. When she failed to return from
the merrymaking her housekeeper was not
alarmed, she said, as Miss Couvert had been
spending considerable time away from home
lately.

“At the Hudgekins apartment it was said
Miss Couvert left shortly before 11 o’clock,

apparently in the best of spirits, and her
hosts were greatly shocked at learning of
her rash act. No reason for her suicide can
be assigned. She was definitely known to be
in good health.”

Then followed an extended account
of the career of the genial old Alsatian
cooper who had amassed a fortune in
the days before national Prohibition
decreased the demand for kegs and
barrels. The news item ended :

“Miss Couvert was the last of her family,
her parents having both predeceased her'
and her only brother, Paul, having been
killed at Belleau Wood in 1918. Unless sho
left a will disposing of her property, it is
said the entire Couvert fortune will escheat
to the state.”

Reaching into his waistcoat pocket
de Grandin removed one of the gold
coins which, with the Frenchman’s
love for “hard money,” he always
carried.

• ‘ This bets the Couvert fortunes are
never claimed by the Commonwealth
of New Jersey, Friend Trowbridge, ’ ’
he announced, ringing the five-dollar
piece on the hot-water dish cover.

He was justified in his wager. Two
weeks later Sarah Couvert ’s will was
formally offered for probate. By it
she left substantial amounts to all
her servants, bequeathed the family
mansion and a handsome endowment,
as a home for working-girls, and left
the residuum of the estate, which
totaled six figures, to her “dear
friend, Estrella Hudgekins.”

A n undersized individual with ears
which stood so far from his head
that, they must have proved a great
embarrassment on a ' windy day
perched on the extreme forward edge
of his chair and gazed pensively at
the top of the brown derby clutched
between his knees. “Yes, sir,” he
answered de Grandin ’s staccato ques-
tions, “me buddy an’ me have had th’
subject under our eye every minute
since you give th’ case to th’ chief.
He wuz to his lawyer’s today an’
ordered a will drawn, makin’ Miss

THE PRIESTESS OF THE IVORY FEET

797

Hudgekins th’ sole legatee: he called
her his feeancy. ’ ’

“You’re sure of this?’’ de Grandin
demanded.

“Sure, I’m sure. Didn’t I give th’
office boy five bucks to let me look at
a carbon copy o’ th’ rough draft o’
th’ will for five minutes? That sort
o’ information comes high, sir, an’
it’ll have to go in on th’ expense ac-
count. ’ ’

“But naturally,’’ the Frenchman
conceded. “And what of the opera-
tive. at the Hotel Granada, has she
forwarded a report?’’

“Sure.’’ The other delved into his
inner pocket, ruffled through a sheaf
of soiled papers, finally segregated a
double sheet fastened with a wire clip.
“Here it is. Th’ Hudgekinses have
been holdin’ some sort o’ powwow
durin’ th’ last few days; sent th’
chicken away to th’ country some-
where, an’ been doin’ a lot o’ talkin’
an’ plannin’ behind locked doors.
Number Thirty-three couldn’t git th’
drift o’ much o’ th’ argument, but
just before th ’ young one wuz packed
off she heard th’ old woman tell her
that her latest dream meant Raymond
— by which I take it she meant th’
young feller we’ve been shadderin’ —
has been elected — no, ‘selected’ wuz
th ’ word — selected to perform th ’ act
o’ supreme adoration, whatever that
means. ’ ’

“Morbleu, I damn think it means
no good!” de Grandin ejaculated,
rising and striding restlessly across
the room. “Now, have you a report
from the gentleman who was to in-
vestigate Miss Stiles’ case?”

“Sure. She wuz buried by Under-
taker Martin, th’ coroner, you know.
Her maid found her dead in bed, an’
rang up Dr. Replier, who’d been at-
tendin’ her for some time. He come
runnin’ over, looked at th’ corpse,
an’ made out a certif’cate statin’ she
died o’ ” — he paused to consult his
notebook — “o’ cardiac insufficiency,
whatever that is. Coroner Martin
wanted a autopsy on th’ case, but on

account o’ th’ old lady’s social
prominence they managed to talk him
out o’ it.”

“H’m,” de Grandin commented
non-committally. “Very good, my
excellent one, your work is deserving
of highest commendation. Should new
developments arise, you will advise
me at once, if you please.”

“Sure,” the detective promised as
he rose to leave.

“For heaven’s sake, what’s it all
about?” I demanded as the door
closed behind the visitor. “What’s
the idea of having Raymond Glen-
dower and this girl trailed by detec-
tives as if they were criminals?”

“Ha,” he laughed shortly. “The
young Glendower is a fool for want
of judgment; of the young Mademoi-
selle, I do not care yet to say whether
she be criminal or not. I hope the best
but fear the worst, my friend.”

“But why the investigation of Miss
Stiles’ death? If Replier said she
died of cardiac insufficiency, I’m
willing to accept that vague diagnosis
at face value; lie’s able, and he’s
honest as the day is long. If ”

“And therefore he is as likely to be
hoodwinked as your own trustful self,
mon vieux,” the little Frenchman
interjected. “Consider, if you please:

“The young Glendower, anxious to
impress us with the importance of
the converts to this new religion of
his, tells us what concerning the death
of the old Mademoiselle Stiles? That
she died in the very moment of per-
forming ‘the act of supreme adora-
tion ’.

“Very good. What says the evi-
dence gathered by my men ? That she
died in her bed at home — at least she
was found dead there by her maid-
servant. Somewhere there is a dis-
crepancy, my friend, a most impres-
sive one. What this act of adoration
may be I do not know, nor do I at
present very greatly care, but that
the excellent deceased lady performed
it in her death-bed I greatly doubt.
No, my friend, I think she died else-

738

WEIRD TALES

where and was taken to her home
that she might be found dead in her
own bed, and her decease therefore
considered natural. The faet that she
had been ailing of a heart affection
for some time, and under treatment
by the good Dr. Replier, made the de-
ception so much easier.”

“But this is fantastic!” I objected.
“We’ve not one shred of evidence on
which to base this theory, and— — ”

“We have a great sufficiency,” he
contradicted, “and more will be
forthcoming anon. Meantime, if
only ”

A vigorous ring at the front door-
bell, seconded by a shrill whistle,
interrupted him. “Special delivery
for Dr. de Grandin,” the boy in-
formed me as I answered the sum-

mons.

“Quickly, Friend Trowbridge, let
me see!” the Frenchman cried as I
took the letter from the messenger.

“Ah, parbleu,” he glanced quickly
through the document, then turned
to me triumphantly, ‘ ‘ I have them on
the hip, my friend! Regard this, if
you please; it is the report of the
Charred Detective Agency’s San
Francisco branch. I intrusted them
with the task of tracing our friend’s
antecedents. Read it, if you please.”

Taking the paper, I read :

HUDGEKINS, TIMOTHY, alias Frank
Hireland, alias William Faust, alias Pat
Malone, alias Henry Palmer.

Description: Height 5 feet 8 inches,
weight 185 pounds, inclined to stoutness,
but not fat, heavily muscled and very
strong. Hair, black mixed with gray, very
coarse and stiff. Face broad, heavy jaw,
arms exceptionally long for his height.
Eyes gray.

Was once quite well known locally as
prizefighter, later as strong-arm man and
bouncer in waterfront saloons. Arrested
and convicted numerous times for misde-
meanors, chiefly assault and battery. Twice
arrested for robbery, but discharged for
lack of evidence. Tried on charge of mur-
der (1900) but acquitted for insufficient
evidence.

Convicted, 1902, for badger game, in con-
spiracy with Susanna Hudgekins (see report
below), served two years in San Quentin
Prison.

Apparently reformed upon release from
prison and secured job with railroad as
laborer. Industrious, hard worker, well
thought of by superiors there. Left job
voluntarily in 1910. Not known locally
since.

HUDGEKINS, SUSANNA, alias Frisco
Sue, alias Annie Rooney, alias Sue Cheney,
wife of above.

Description: Short, inclined to stoutness,
but very strong for female. Height 5 feet
4 inches, weight about 145 pounds. Hair
brown, usually dyed red or bleached. Face
broad, very prominent jaw. Eyes brown.

This party was waitress and entertainer
in number of music halls prior to marriage
to Timothy Hudgekins (see above). Maiden
name not definitely known, but believed
to be Hopkins. Arrested numerous times
for misdemeanors, chiefly drunkenness and
disorderly conduct, several times for assault
and battery. Was co-defendant in robbery
and murder cases involving her husband, as
noted above. Acquitted for lack of evidence.

Convicted,. 1902, with Timothy Hudge-
kins, on charge of operating a badger game.
Served 1 year in State Reformatory.

Apparently reformed upon discharge from
prison. Accompanied husband on job with
railroad. Disappeared with him in 1910. Not
known locally since.

In 1909 this couple, showing an excellent
record for industry and honesty, applied to
Bidewell Home for Orphans, Los Angeles,
for baby girl. They were most careful in
making selection, desiring a very young
child, a blond, and one of exeeptionably good
looks. Said since they were both so ugly,
they particularly wanted a pretty child.
Were finally granted permission to adopt
Dorothy Ericson, 3 months old, orphan with-
out known relatives, child of poor but high-
ly respected Norwegian parents who died in
tenement fire two months before. The child
lived with her foster parents in railroad
camps where they worked, and disappeared
when they left the job. Nothing has been
heard of her sinee.

“'E'xcellent, superb; magnifique!”

' he cried exultantly as I finished
reading the jerkily worded but com-
plete report. “Behold the dossier of
these founders of a new religion, these
Messiahs of a new faith, my friend !

“Also behold the answer to the
puzzle which has driven Jules de
Grandin nearly frantic. A lily may
grow upon a dung-heap, a rose may
rise from a bed of filth, but two apes
do not beget a gazelle, nor do carrion
crows have doves for progeny. No,

THE PRIESTESS OF THE IVORY FEET

799

certainly not. I knew it ; I was sure
of it; I was certain. She could not
have been their child, Friend Trow-
bridge; but this proves the truth of
my premonition.”

“But what’s it all about?” I de-
manded. “I’m not surprized at the
Hudgekins’ pedigree — their appear-
ance is certainly against them — nor
does the news that the girl ’s not their
child surprize me, but ”

“ ‘But’ be everlastingly cooked in
hell’s most choicely heated furnace!”
he interrupted. “You ask what it
means? This, cordieu!

“Jn California, that land of sun-
shine, alkali dust and crack-brained,
fool-fostered religious thought, these
two cheap criminals, these out-sweep-
ings of the jail, in some way stumbled
on a smattering of learning concern-
ing the Eastern philosophies which
have set many a Western woman’s
feet upon the road to madness. Per-
haps they saw some monkey-faced,
turbaned trickster from the Orient
harvesting a crop of golden dollars
from credulous old ladies of both
sexes who flocked about him as coun-
try bumpkins patronize the manipula-
tors of the three cards at county fairs.
Although I should not have said they
possessed so much shrewdness, it ap-
pears they conceived the idea of start-
ing a new religion — a cult of their
own. The man who will demand ten
signatures upon a promissory note
and look askance at you if you tell
him of interplanetary distances, will
swallow any idle fable, no matter
how absurd, if it be boldly asserted
and surrounded with sufficient non-
sensical mummery and labeled a
religion. Very well. These two were
astute enough to realize they could
not hope to impose on those possessing
money by themselves, for their ap-
pearance was too much against them.
But ah, if they could but come upon
some most attractive person — a young
girl endowed with charm and beauty,
by preference — and put her forward
as the prophetess of their cult while

they remained in the background to
pull the strings which moved their
pretty puppet, that would be some-
thing entirely different!

“And so they did. Appearing to
reform completely, they assumed the
guise of honest working-folk, adopted
a baby girl with unformed mind whom
they trained to work their wicked will
from earliest infancy, and — voild, the
result we have already seen.

“Poor thing, she sincerely believes
that she is not as other women, but is
a being apart, sent into the world to
lighten its darkness; she stated in
guileless simplicity what would be
blasphemy coming from knowing lips,
and by her charm and beauty she
snares those whose wealth has not
been sufficient to fill their starved
lives. Ah, my friend, youth and
beauty are heaven’s rarest treasures,
but each time God creates a beautiful
woman the Devil opens a new page
in his ledger. Consider how their
nefarious scheme has worked :

“Take the poor little rich Made-
moiselle Couvert, by example : En-
dowed with riches beyond the dream
of most, she still lacked every vestige
of personal attractiveness, her life had
been a dismal routine of emptiness
and her starved, repressed soul longed
for beauty as a flower longs for sun-
light. When the beauteous priestess
of this seventy-nine-thousand-times-
damned cult deigned to notice her,
even called her friend, she was ecstatic
in her happiness, and it was but a
matter of time till she was induced
by flattery to make the priestess her
heir by will. Then, deliberately, I
believe, that sale bete, Hudgekins,
pushed her against his daughter, thus
forcing her unwittingly to disobey
one of the cult’s so stupid rules.

“Consider, my friend: We, as
physicians, know to what lengths the
attraction of woman for woman can
go — we see it daily in schoolgirl
‘crushes,’ usually where a younger
woman makes a veritable goddess of
an older one. Again, we see it when

800

WEIRD TALES

one lacking in charm and beauty at-
taches herself worshipfully to some
being endowed with both. To such
starved souls the very sight of the
adored one is like the touch of his
sweetheart’s lips to a love-sick youth.
They love, they worship, they adore;
not infrequently the passion’s
strength becomes so great as to be
elearly a pathological condition. So
it was in this case. When Mademoi-
selle Estrella mouthed the words she
had been taught, and bade her wor-
shipper depart from her side, poor
Mademoiselle Convert was over-
whelmed. It was as if she had been
stricken blind and never more would
see the sun ; there was nothing left in
life for her; she destroyed herself —
and her will was duly probated. Yes.

“Very well. What then? We do
not know for certain how the old Ma-
demoiselle Stiles came to her death;
but I firmly believe it was criminally
induced by those vile ones who had
secured her signature to a will in their
daughter’s favor.

“But yes. What next? The young
Glendower is not greatly wealthy, but
his fortune of a hundred thousand
dollars is not to be sneezed upon.
Already we have seen how great a
fool he has become for love of this
beautiful girl. There is nothing he
would not do to please her. We know
of a certainty he has made his will
naming her as sole beneficiary; per-
chance he would destroy himself, were
she to ask it.

“Will she marry him? The hope
has been held out, but I think it a
vain one. These evil ones who have
reaped so rich a harvest through their
villainous schemes, they will not wil-
lingly permit that their little goose of
the golden eggs shall become the
bride of a man possessing a mere hun-
dred thousand ; besides, that money is
already as good as in their pockets.
No, no, my friend; the young Glen-
dower is even now in deadly peril.
Already I can see their smug-faced
lawyer rising to request probate of

the will which invests them with his
property ! ’ ’

“But this ‘act of supreme adora-
tion’ we keep hearing about,’’ I asked,
“what can it be?”

“ Precisement,” he agreed with a
vigorous nod. “What? We do not
know, but I damn fear it is bound up
with the young Glendower ’s ap-
proaching doom, and I shall make it
our business to be present when it is
performed. Pardieu, I shall not be
greatly astonished if Jules de Gran-
din has an act of his own to perform
about that time. Mais oui; certainly!
It might be as well, all things con-
sidered, if we were to get in touch

with the excellent ”

“Detective Sergeant Costello to see
Dr. de Grandin ! ’ ’ Nora McGinnis ap-
peared at the drawing-room door like
a cuckoo popping from its clock, and
stood aside to permit six feet and
several inches of Hibernian muscle,
bone and good nature to enter.

“Eh hicn, nion tresor,” the French-
man hailed delightedly, “this is most
truly a case of speaking of the angels
and immediately finding a feather
from their wings ! In all the city there
is no one I more greatly desire to see
at this moment than your excellent
self!”

“Thanks, Dr. de Grandin, sor,” re-
turned the big detective sergeant,
smiling down at de Grandin with
genuine affection. ■ “ ’Tis Jerry Cos-
tello as can say th’ same concernin’
yerself, too. Indade, I’ve a case up
me sleeve that won’t wur-rk out no
ways, so I’ve come to get ye to help
me fit th ’ pieces together. ’ ’

“Avec plaisir,” the Frenchman re-
plied. “Say on, and when you have
done, I have a case for you, too, I
think.”

“VX/ell, sor,” the detective began
’ ' as he eased his great bulk into
an easy-ehair and bit the end from
the cigar I tendered him, “’tis like
this: Last night somethin ’ after two

THE PRIESTESS OF THE IVORY FEET

801

o’clock in th’ mornin’, one o’ th’
motorcycle squad, a bright lad be th’
name o’ Stebbins, wuz cornin’ out of
a coffee-pot where he’d been to git a
shot o’ Java to take th’ frost from his
bones, when he seen a big car cornin’
down Tunlaw Street hell-bent fer
election. ‘Ah ha, ’ says he, ‘this bur-rd
seems in a hurry, maybe he’d like to
hurry over to th’ traffic court wid a
ticket,’ an’ wid that he tunes up his
’eycle an’ sets out to see what all th’
road-bumin’ was about.

“ ’Twas a powerful car, sor, an’
Stebbins had th’ divil’s own time
keepin’ it in sight, but he hung on
like th’ tail to a dog, drawin’ closer
an’ closer as his gas gits to feedin’
good, an’ what d’ye think he seen,
sor?’”

“Le bon Dieu knows,” de Grandin
admitted.

“Th’ limousine turns th’ comer on
two wheels, runnin’ down Tuscarora
Avenue like th’ hammers o’ hell, an’
draws up before Mr. Marschaulk’s
house, pantin’ like a dog that’s had
his lights run out. Next moment out
leaps a big gorilla of a felly support-
in’ another man in his arms, an’
makes fer th’ front door.

“ ‘What's th’ main idea?’ Stebbins
wants to know as he draws up along-
side; ‘don’t they have no speed laws
where you come from?’

“An’, ‘Sure they do,’ answers th’
other guy, bold as brass, ‘an’ they
has policemen that’s some good to th’
public, too. This here’s Mr. Mar-
schaulk, an’ he’s been took mighty
bad. I like to burned me motor out
gittin’ him home, an’ if ye’ll run fer
fh’ nearest doctor, ’stead o’ standin’
there playin’ wid that book o’ sum-
monses, I’ll be thinkin’ more o’ ye.’

“Well, sor, Stebbins is no one’s
fool, an’ he can see wid half an eye
that Mr. Marschaulk’s in a bad way,
so he notes down th’ car’s number
an’ beats it down th’ street till he
sees a doctor’s sign, then hammers on
th’ front door till th’ sawbones — ask-

in’ yer pardon, gentlemen — comes
down to see what its all about.

“They goes over to Marschaulk’s in
th’ All America speed record, sor, an’
what do they find?”

“ Dieu de Dieu, is this a guessing-
game?” de Grandin cried testily.
“What did they find, mon vieuxf”

“A corpse, sor; a dead corpse, an’
nothin’ else. Mr. Marschaulk’s body
had been dumped down in his front
hall promiscuous-like, an’ th’ guy as
brought him an’ th’ car he brought
him in had vamoosed. Vanished into
thin air, as th’ felly says.

“Stebbins had th’ license number,
as I told ye, an ’ right away he locates
th’ owner. It were Mr. Cochran —
Tobias A. Cochran, th’ banker, sor;
an’ he’d been in his bed an’ asleep
fer th’ last two hours. Furthermore,
he told Stebbins he’d let his Filipino
chauffeur go to New York th* day
before, an’ th’ felly wuz still away.
On top o’ that, when they came to
examine th’ garage, they found un-
mistakable evidence it had been bur-
glarized, in fact, th’ lock wuz broke
clean away.”

“U’m,” de Grandin murmured,
“it would seem Monsieur Cochran is
not implicated, then.”

“No, sor; aside from his fine stand-
in’ in th’ community, his alibi’s
watertight as a copper kettle. But ye
ain’t heard nothin’ yet.

“It were a coroner’s case, o’ course,
an’ Mr. Martin didn’t let no grass
grow under his feet orderin’ th’
autopsy. They found Mr. Marschaulk
had been dead th’ better part o’ two
hours before Stebbins an’ th’ doctor
found him, an’ that he died o’ mer-
curic cyanide ”

“Bon Dieu, the poisonest of the
poisons!” de Grandin ejaculated.
“Very good, my friend, what have
you found ? Has the man been appre-
hended?”

“He has not, sor, an’ that’s one
reason I’m settin’ here this minute.
Stebbins wuz so taken up wid gittin’
th’ car’s number an’ runnin’ fer a

WEIRD TALES

$02

doctor that he didn’t git a good look
at th’ felly.- In fact, he never even
seen his face, as he kept it down all
th’ time they wuz talkin’. That
seemed natural enough at th’ time,
too, as he wuz supportin’ Mr. Mar-
schaulk on his shoulder, like. Th’
most we know about him is he wuz
heavy-set, but not fat, wid a big pair
o’ shoulders an’ a voice like a bull-
frog singin’ in a clump o’ reeds.”

“And you can find no motive for
the killing, whether it be suicide or
homicide?”

“That we can’t sor. This here now
Mr. Marschaulk wuz a harmless sort
o’ nut, sor; kind o’ bugs on religion,
from what I’ve been told. Some time
ago he took up wid a new church o’
some kind an’ has been runnin’ wild
ever since, but in a harmless way —
goin’ to their meetin’s an’ th’ like o’
that, ye know. It seems like he wuz
out wid some o’ th’ church folks th’
very night he died, but when we went
to round up th’ evidence, we drew a
blank there.

“Just a little before ten o’clock he
called at Mr. Hudgekins’ apartment
in th’ Granada, but left sometime
around eleven by himself. We’ve th’
Hudgekins’ word fer it, an’ th’ eleva-
tor boy’s an’ th’ hallman’s, too. He’d
been there often enough fer them to
know him by sight, ye see.”

“IJ’m, and Monsieur and Madame
Hudgekins, did they remain at
home?” de Grandin asked casually,
but there were ominous flashes of cold
lightning in his eyes as he spoke.

“As far as we can check up, they
did, sor. They say they did, an’ we
can’t find nobody who seen ’em leave,
an’ about a quarter after twelve Mr.
Hudgekins himself called th’ office
an’ asked fer more heat — though why
he asked th’ saints only know, as
’twas warm as summer last night an’
them apartments is heated hot enough
to roast a hog.”

“Tete du Diable,” de Grandin
swore, “this spoils everything!”

“How’s that, sor?”

“Tell me, my sergeant,” the
Frenchman demanded irrelevantly,
“you interviewed Monsieur and Ma-
dame Hudgekins. What is your
opinion of them?”

“Well, sor,” Costello colored with
embarrassment, “do ye want th’
truth?”

“But certainly, however painful it
maybe.” ' Vi '*

“Well, then, sor, though they lives
in a fine house an’ weal’s fine clothes
an’ acts like a pair o’ howlin’ swell|,
if I seen ’em in -different circum-
stances, I ’d run ’em in on suspicion
an’ see if I couldn’t make a cas4
later. Th’ man looks like a bruiser
to me, like a second-rate pug that's
managed to git hold of a pot o’ money
somewhere, an’ the’ woman — -Lord
save us, sor, I ’ve run in many a wan
lookin’ far more respectable when I
■wuz poundin’ a beat in uniform down
in th’ old second ward!”

“Bien oui,” de Grandin chuckled
delightedly. ‘ ‘ I have not the pleasure
of knowing your so delectable second
ward, my old one, but I can well
guess what sort of neighborhood it
was. My sergeant, your intuitions
are marvelous. Your inner judgment
has the courage to call your sight a
liar. Now tell me, how did Mademoi-
selle Hudgekins impress you?”

“I didn’t see her, sor. She were
out o’ town, an’ has been fer some
time. I checked that up, too.”

“Barbe d’une anguille, this is ex-
asperating!” de Grandin fumed. “It
is ‘stalemate’ at every turn, par-
bleu!”

“Oh, you’re obsessed with the idea
the Hudgekins are mixed up in this!”
I scoffed. “It’s no go, old fellotf.
Come, admit you ’re beaten, and apply
yourself to trying to find what Mar-
schaulk did and where he went after
leaving the Granada last night.”

“I s’pose ye’re right, Dr. Trow-
bridge, sor, ’ ’ Sergeant Costello admit-
ted sorrowfully, “but I’m wid Dr. de
Grandin; I can’t get it out o’ me nut
that that pair o’ bur-rds had sumpin

THE PRIESTESS OF THE IVORY FEET

803

$0 do wid pore old Marschaulk’s
death, or at least know more about it
than they’re willin’ to admit.”

“Helas, we can do nothing here,”
de Grandin added sadly. “Come,
Friend Sergeant, let us visit the good
Coroner Martin; we may find addi-
tional information. Trowbridge, mon
vieux, I shall return when I return;
more definite I can not be.”

I was finishing a solitary breakfast
when he fairly bounced into the
room, his face drawn with fatigue,
but a light of elation shining in his
little blue eyes. “Triomphc — or at
least progress!” he announced as he
dropped into a chair and drained a
cup of coffee in three gigantic gulps.
“Attend me with greatest care, my
friend :

“Last night the good Costello and
I repaired to Coroner Martin’s and
inspected the relics of the lamented
Monsieur Marschaulk. Thereafter we
journeyed to the Hotel Granada,
where we found the same people on
duty as the night before. A few ques-
tions supplied certain bits of informa-
tion w,e had not before had. By
example, we proved conclusively that
those retainers of the house remem-
bered not what they had done, but
what they thought they had done.
They all insisted it would have been
impossible for anyone to have left the
place without being seen by them, but
anon it developed that just before
eleven o’clock there rose a great cloud
of smoke in the alley which flanks the
apartment, and one and all they went
to investigate its source. Something
smoked most vilely in the middle of
the passageway, and when they went
too near they found it stung their
eyes so they were practically blinded.
Now, during that short interval, they
finally admitted, it would have been
possible for one to slip past them,
through the passage on the side street
and be out of sight before they real-
ized it. Much can be accomplished

in a minute, or even half a minute,
by one who is fleet of foot and has
his actions planned, my friend.”

“Yes, that’s all very well,” I con-
ceded, “but you’re forgetting one
thing. How could Hudgekins call up
and demand more heat at twelve
o’clock if he had sneaked out at
eleven? Do you contend that he crept
back into the house while they were
looking at another smoke screen? If
he did, he must have worked the trick
at least four times in all, since you
seem to think it was he who brought
Marschaulk’s body home and stole
Cochran’s car to do it.”

He looked thoughtfully at the little
disk of bubbles forming above the
lump of sugar he had just dropped
into his third cup of coffee. “One
must think that over,” he admitted.
“Re-entrance to the house after two
o’clock would not have been difficult,
for the telephone girl quits work at
half-past twelve, and at one the hall-
man locks the outer doors and leaves,
while the lift man goes off duty at the
same time and the car is thereafter
operated automatically by push but-
tons. Each tenant has a key to the
building so belated arrivals can let
themselves in or out as they desire.”

“But the telephone call,” I in-
sisted; “you haven’t explained that
yet.”

“No,” he agreed, “we must over-
come that ; but it does not destroy my
theory, even though it might break
down a prosecution in court.

“Consider this: After leaving the
hotel, we returned to see Monsieur
Martin, and I voiced my suspicions,
that Mademoiselle Stiles’ death need-
ed further explanation. Monsieur
Martin agreed.

“Thereupon the good Costello and
I resorted to a ruse de guerre. We
told all we knew concerning Monsieur
Marschaulk’s death, but suppressed
all mention of that sacre telephone
call.

“My friend, we were successful.

804

WEIRD TALES

Entirely so. At our most earnest re-
quest Monsieur Martin forthwith
ordered exhumation of Mademoiselle
Stiles’ body. In the dead of night
we disentombed her and took her to
his mortuary. It was hard to get
Parnell, the coroner’s physician, from
his bed, for he is a lazy swine, but
at last we succeeded in knocking him
up and forced him to perform a post-
mortem examination. My friend,
Matilda Stiles was done to death; she
was murdered!”

“You’re crazy!’’ I told him. “Dr.
Replier’s certificate stated ’’

“Ah hah, that certificate, it is fit
only to light the fire!” he cut in.
“Listen: In Mademoiselle Stiles’
mouth, and in her stomach, too, we
did find minute, but clearly recogniz-
able traces of Hg(CN) — mercuric
cyanide! I repeat, Friend Trow-
bridge, she was murdered, and Jules
de Grandin will surely lay her slayers
by the heels. Yes. ’ ’

“But ”

The shrill, insistent summons of the
’phone bell interrupted my protest.

The call was for de Grandin, and
after a moment’s low conversation he
hung up, returning to the breakfast
room with grimly set mouth. “L’heure
zero strikes tonight, Friend Trow-
bridge,” he announced gravely.
“That was the excellent detective I
have had on young Glendower ’s trail.
He reports they have just intercepted
a conversation the young man had by
telephone with Mademoiselle Estrella.
He is to make the ‘act of supreme
adoration’ this night.”

“But what can we do?” I asked,
filled with vague forebodings despite
my better judgment. “If ”

“Eh bien, first of all we can sleep;
at least, 1 can,” he answered with a
yawn. “Morbleu, I feel as though I
could slumber round the clock — but
I will thank you to have me called in
time for dinner, if you please.”

<{ /t LLOt” de Grandin snatched the
telephone from its hook as the
bell’s first warning tinkle sounded.
“You say so? It is well; we come
forthwith, instantly, at once!”

Turning to Costello and me he an-
nounced: “The time is come, my
friends ; my watcher has reported the
young Glendower but now left his
house en route for the Hudgekins’.
dwelling. Come, let us go. ”

Hastening into our outdoor clothes
we set out for the Granada and were
hailed by the undersized man with
the oversized ears as we neared the
hotel. “He went in ten minutes ago,”
the sleuth informed us, “an’ unless
he’s got wings, he’s still there.”

“Eh bien, then we remain here,”
de Grandin returned, nestling deeper
into the folds of the steamer rug he
had wrapped about him.

Half an hour passed, an hour, two ;
still Raymond Glendower lingered.
“I’m for going home,” I suggested
as a particularly sharp gust of the
unseasonably cold spring wind swept
down the street. “The chances are
Raymond’s only paying a social call
anyway, and ”

“ Tiens , if that be true, his socia-
bility is ended,” de Grandin inter-
rupted. “Behold, he comes.”

Sure enough, young Glendower
emerged from the hotel, a look of such
rapt inattention on his face as might
be worn by a bridegroom setting out
for the chureli.

I leaned forward to start the motor,
but the Frenchman restrained me.
“Wait a moment, my friend,” he
urged. “The young Monsieur 9 s move-;
ments will be watched by sharper eyes
than ours, and it is of the movements’
of Monsieur and Madame Hudgekins
I would take note at this time.”

Again we entered on a period of
waiting, but this time our vigil was
not so long. Less than half an hour
after Raymond left the hotel a light

THE PRIESTESS OF THE IVORY FEET

805

delivery truck drove up to the Gra-
nada’s service entrance and two men
in overalls and jumper alighted.
Within a few minutes they returned,
bearing between them a long wooden
box upholstered in coarse denim. Ap-
parently the thing was the base of a
combination couch and clothes-chest,
but from the slow care with which its
bearers carried it, it might have been
filled with something fragile as glass
and heavy as lead.

“U’m,”de Grandin twisted vicious-
ly at the tips of his tightly waxed
wheat-blond mustache, “my friends,
I damn think I shall try an experi-
ment. Trowbridge, mon ami, do you
remain here. Sergeant, will you come
with me?”

They crossed the street, entered the
corner drug-store and waited some-
thing like five minutes. The French-
man was elated, the Irishman thought-
ful as they rejoined me. “Three
times we did attempt to get the
Hudgekins apartment by telephone,”
de Grandin explained with a satisfied
chuckle, “and three times Mademoi-
selle the Central Operator informed
us the line did not answer and re-
turned our coin. Now, Friend Trow-
bridge, do you care to hazard a guess
what the contents of that box we saw
depart might have been?”

“You mean ”

“Perfectly; no less. Our friends
the Hudgekins lay snugly inside that
coffin-like box, undoubtlessly grinning
like cats fed on cheese and thumbing
their noses at the attendants in the
hotel lobby. Tomorrow those innocent
ones will swear upon a pile of Bibles
ten meters high that neither the
amiable Monsieur Hudgekins nor his
equally, amiable wife left the place.
More, I will wager they will solemnly
affirm Monsieur or Madame Hudge-
kins called the office by ’phone and
demanded more steam in the radi-
ators!”

“But they can’t do that,” I pro-
tested. “There’s an inside ’phone
in the house, and a call made from

an instrument outside would not be
taken over one of the house ’phones.
They couldn’t ”

My argument was cut short by the
approach of a nondescript individual
who touched his hat to de Grandin.
“He’s gone to 487 Luxor Road,” this
person announced, “an’ Shipley just
’phoned a furniture wagon drove up
an’ two birds lugged a hell of a heavy
box up th’ stairs to th’ hall.

“Oh, sure,” he nodded in response
to the Frenchman’s admonition.
“We’ll call their apartment every
fifteen minutes from now till you tell
us to lay off.”

“Tres bien,” de Grandin snapped.
“Now, Friend Trowbridge, to 487
Luxor Road, if you please. Sergeant,
you will come as soon as possible?”

“You betcha,” Costello responded
as he swung from the car and set off
toward the nearest police station.

Tt was an unsavory neighborhood
A through which Luxor Road ran,
and the tumble-down building which
was number 487 was the least respect-
able-appearing to be found in a thor-
oughly disreputable block. In days
before the war the ground floor had
housed a saloon, and its proprietors
or their successors had evidently
nourished an ambition to continue
business against the form of the stat-
ute in such ease made and provided,
for pasted to the grimy glass of the
window was a large white placard an-
nouncing that the place was closed by
order of the United States District
Court, and a padlock and hasp of im-
pressive proportions decorated the
principal entrance. Another sign,
more difficult to decipher, hung
above the doorway to the upper story,
announcing that the hall above was
for rent for weddings, lodges and
select parties.

Up the rickety stairs leading to this
dubious apartment de Grandin led
the way.

The landing at the stairhead was
dark as Erebus; no gleam of light

806

WEIRD TALES

seeped under the door which barred
the way, but the Frenchman tiptoed
across the dusty floor and tapped
timidly on the panels. Silence an-
swered his summons, but as he re-
peated the hail the door swung in-
ward a few inches and a hooded figure
peered through the crack. “Who
comes,” the porter whispered, “and
why have ye not the mystic knoek?”

“Morbleu, perhaps this knoek will
be more greatly to your liking?” the
Frenchman answered in a low, hard
whisper, as his blackjack thudded
sickeningly on the warder’s hooded
. head.

“Assist me, my friend,” he ordered
in a low breath, catching the man as
he toppled forward and easing him
to the floor. “So. Off with his robe
while I make sure of his good be-
havior with these.” The snap of
handcuffs sounded, and in a moment
de Grandin rose, donned the hooded
mantle he had stripped from the un-
conscious man, and tiptoed through
the door.

We felt our way across the dimly
lighted anteroom beyond and parted
a pair of muffling curtains to peer
into a lodge hall some twenty feet
wide by fifty long. Flickering candles
burning in globes of red and blue
glass gave the • place illumination
which was just one degree less than
darkness. Near us was a raised plat-
form or altar approached by three
high steps carpeted with a drugget
on which were worked designs of a
triangle surrounding an opened eye,
one of the emblems appearing on the
lift of each step. Upon the altar it-
self stood two square columns painted
a dull red and surmounted by blue
candles at least two inches thick,
which burned smokily, diluting, rath-
er than dispelling, the surrounding
darkness. Each column was deco-
rated with a crudely daubed picture
of a cockerel equipped with three
human legs, and behind the platform
■was a reredos bearing the device of
two interlaced triangles enclosing an

opened eye and surrounded by two
circles, the outer red, the inner blue.
Brazen pots of incense stood upon
each step, and from their perforated
conical caps poured forth dense clouds
of sweet, almost sickeningly perfumed
smoke.

Facing the altar on two rows of
backless benches sat the congregation,
each so enveloped in a hooded robe
that it was impossible to distinguish
the face, or even the sex of various
individuals.

Almost as de Grandin parted the
curtains a mellow-toned gong sounded
three deep, admonitory notes, and,
preceded by a blue-robed figure and
followed by another in robes of scar-
let, Estrella Hudgekins entered the
room from the farther end. She was
draped in some sort of garment of
white linen embroidered in blue, red
and yellow, the costume seeming to
consist of a split tunic with long,
wide-mouthed sleeves which reached
to the wrists. The skirt, if such it
could be called, depended forward
from her shoulders like a clergyman ’s
stole, and while it screened the fore
part of her body, it revealed her
nether limbs from hip to ankle at
every shuffling step. Behind, it hung
down like a loose cloak, completely
veiling her from neck to heels. Upon
her head was a tall cap of starehed
white linen shaped something like a
bishop’s miter and surmounted by a
golden representation of the triangle
enclosing the opened, all-seeing eye.
Beneath the cap her golden hair had
been smoothly brushed and parted,
and plaited with strings of rubies and
of pearls, the braids falling forward
over her shoirlders and reaching al-
most to her knees.

As she advanced into the spot of
luminance cast by the altar candles
we saw the reason for her sliding,
shuffling walk. Her nude, white feet
were shod with sandals of solid gold
consisting of soles with exaggeratedly
upturned toes and a. single metallic
instep strap, making it impossible for

THE PRIESTESS OF THE IVORY FEET

807

her to retain the rigid, metallic foot-
gear and lift her feet even an inch
from the floor.

Just before the altar her escort
halted, ranging themselves on each
side of her, and like a trio of mechan-
ically controlled automata, they sank
to their knees, crossed their hands
upon their breasts and lowered their
foreheads to the floor. At this the
"congregation followed suit, and for a
moment utter quiet reigned in the
hall as priestess and votaries lay pros-
trate in silent adoration.

Then up she leaped, cast off her
golden shoes, and advancing to the
altar’s lowest step, began a stamping,
whirling dance, accompanied only by
the rhythmic clapping of the con-
gregation ’s hands. And as she danced
I saw a cloud of fine, white powder
dust upward from the rug and fall
like snow on marble upon the white-
ness of her feet.

“Ah?” breathed Jules de Grandin
in my ear, and from his tone I knew
he found the answer to something
which had puzzled him.

The dance endured for possibly five
minutes, then ended sharply as it had
commenced, and like a queen ascend-
ing to her throne, Estrella mounted
the three steps of the altar, her pow-
der-sprinkled feet leaving a trail of
whitened prints on the purple carpet
as she passed.

“Come forth, 0 chosen of the
Highest; advance, 0 happiest of the
servants of the One,” chanted one of
the cowled figures who had escorted
the priestess. “You who have been
chosen from among the flock to make
the Act of Supreme Adoration ; if you
have searched your soul and found
no guile therein, advance and make
obeisance to the Godhead’s Incarna-
tion!”

There was a fluttering of robes and
a craning of hooded heads toward the
rear of the hall as a new figure ad-
vanced from the shadows. He was all
in spotless linen like the priestess, but
as he strode resolutely forward we

saw the smock-like garment which en-
veloped him was drawn over his
everyday attire.

“Morbleu,” de Grandin murmured,
“I have it; it is easier that way!
Dressing a corpse is awkward busi-
ness, while stripping the robe from
off a body is but an instant’s work.
Yes.”

“Forasmuch as our brother Ray-
mond has purified and cleansed his
body by fasting and his mind and
soul by meditation, and has made
petition to the All-Highest for per-
mission to perform the Act of
Supreme Adoration, know ye all here
assembled that it is the will of the
Divine All, as manifested in a vision
vouchsafed His priestess and In-
carnation, that His servant be allowed
to make the trial,” the hooded master
of ceremonies announced in a deep,
sepulchral voice.

Turning to Raymond, he cautioned :
“Know ye, my brother, that there is
but one in all the earth deemed fitting
to pass this test. The world is large,
its people many; dost thou dare?
Bethink you, if there be but one
small taint of worldliness in your
most secret thoughts, your presump-
tion in offering yourself as life-mate
to the priestess is punishable by death
of body and everlasting annihilation
of soul, for it has been revealed that
many shall apply and only one be
chosen. ’ ’

To the congregation he announced:
“If the candidate be a woman and
pass the test, then shall the priestess
cleave unto her so long as she shall
live, and be forever her companion.
If he be a man, he may ask her hand
in marriage, and she may not refuse
him. But if he fail, death shall be his
portion. Is it the law?”

“It is the law!” chanted the
assembly in one voice.

“And dost thou still persist in thy
trial?” the hooded one demanded,
turning once more to Raymond. “Re-
member, already two have tried and
been found wanting, and the wrath

808

WEIRD TALES

of the Divine All smote and withered
them, even as they performed the act
of adoration. Dost thou dare?’.’

“I do!” said Raymond Glendower
as his eyes sought the lovely, smiling
eyes of the white-robed priestess.

“It is well. Proceed, my son. Make
thou the Act of Supremest Adoration,
and may the favor of the Divine All
accompany thee!”

I t was deathly silent in the room as
Raymond Glendower dropped upon
his knees and crept toward the altar
steps. Only the sigh of quickly in-
drawn breath betrayed the keyed emo-
tion of the congregation as they
leaned forward to see a man gamble
with his life as forfeit.

- Arms outstretched to right and left,
head thrown back, body erect, the
priestess stood, a lovely, cruciform
figure between the flickering candles
as her lover crept slowly up the altar
steps.

At the topmost step he paused,
kneeled erect a moment, then placed
his hands palm downward each side
the priestess’ feet.

“Salute !” the hooded acolyte cried.
“Salute with lips and tongue the feet
of her who is the living shrine and
temple of the Most High, the Divine
All. Salute the Ivory-footed Incar-
nation of our God!”

Lips pursed as though to kiss a holy
thing, Raymond Glendower bent his
head above Estrella’s ivory insteps,
but:

“My hands, beloved, not my feet!”
she cried, dropping her arms before
her and holding out her hands, palm
forward, to his lips.

“Mordieu,” de Grandin whispered
in delight. “Love conquers all, my
friend, even her mistaught belief that
she is God’s own personal representa-
tive!”

“Sacrilege!” roared the hooded
man. “ It is not so written in the law !
’Tis death and worse than death for
one who has not passed the test to
touch the priestess’ hands!”

A shaft of blinding light, gleaming
as the sunlight, revealing as the glow
of day, shot through the gloom and
lighted up the hate-distorted features
of Timothy Hudgekins . beneath the
monk’s-hood of the robe he wore.
“Sacrilege it. is, parbleu, but it is you
who make it ! ” de Grandin cried as he
focused his flashlight upon the mas-
ter of ceremonies and advanced with
a slow, menacing stride across the
temple’s floor.

“You?” Hudgekins cried, “Yoh
rat, you nasty little sneak, I’ll, break
every bone ” .

He launched himself on Jules de
Grandin with a bellow like an in-
furiated bull.

The slender Frenchman crumpled
like a broken reed beneath the other ’s
charge, then straightened like a loosed
steel spring, flinging Hudgekins
sprawling face downward upon the
carpet where the priestess had per-
formed her dance.

“A moi, Sergent; d moi, les gen-
darmes; I have them!” he cried, and
the stamping of thick-soled boots, the
inpact of fist and nightstick on hooded
heads, mingled with the cries, curses
and lamentations of the congregation
of the Church of the Heavenly Gnosis
as Costello led his platoon of police-
men in the raid.

“Susanna Hudgekins, alias Friseo
Sue, alias Annie Rooney, alias Sue
Cheney, alias only the good God alone
knows what else, I charge you with
conspiracy to kill and murder Ray-
mond Glendower, and with having
murdered by conspiracy Matilda
Stiles and Lawson Marschaulk — look
to her, Sergeant,” de Grandin cried,
pointing a level finger at the second
hooded form which had accompanied
the priestess to the altar.

“What’ll we do wid th’ he one an’
th’ gur-rl, sor?” Costello asked as he
clasped a pair of handcuffs on
Susanna Hudgekins’ wrists.

“The man ” de Grandin began,

then:

“ Grand Lieu, behold him!”

THE PRIESTESS OF THE IVORY FEET

809

Timothy Hudgekins lay where he
had fallen, his face buried in the
deep-piled, powder-saturated carpet
on which the priestess had danced. A
single glance told us he was dead.

“I damn think the city mortuary
Would be his last abiding-place — till
he fills a felon’s grave,” de Grandin
ahnounced callously. “He is caught
in his own pitfall.”

To me he explained: “When I
flung the filthy beast from me his vile
face did come in contact with that
carpet which was saturated in cyanido
of mercury. It was on that they made
their poor, deluded dupe dance till
her feet were covered with the pow-
dered poison ; then he who kissed and
licked them perished instantly. So
died Mademoiselle Stiles and so died
Monsieur Marschaulk, and, grace d.
Dieu, the poison he spread for the
young Glendower has utterly de-
stroyed that vile reptile of the name
of Hudgekins. Half stunned from his
fall, he breathed the deadly powder
in, it dusted on his lips and swept
into his mouth. So he died. I am very
pleased to see it.”

“What about th’ gur-rl, sor?”
Costello reminded.

“Nothing,” de Grandin returned
shortly. “She is innocent, my friend,
the dupe and tool of those wicked
ones. Should you seek her for ques-
tioning anon, I think you will find her
in Monsieur Glendower ’s custody, by
all appearances.”

We turned with one accord toward
the altar. In the light of the guttering
candles Raymond Glendower and
Dorothy Ericson, whom we had known
as Estrella Hudgekins, were locked
in each other’s an ns, and kissing each
other on the lips, as lovers were meant
to kiss.

“/Certainly, Mr. Hudgekins called
the office,” the Granada tele-
phone girl answered de Grandin ’s
query. “Just a few minutes after
twelve o’clock he called and asked us
to send up more heat. ’ ’

“Did he now?” Costello asked.
“Bedad, he’s some guy, that felly,
ain’t he, Dr. de Grandin, sor?”

“You called the Hudgekins apart-
ment at intervals?” de Grandin asked
the sleuth we’d left to watch the
hotel.

“Sure,” that worthy replied.
“Every fifteen minutes, regular as
clockwork. Always got th’ same
answer: ‘Yer party doesn’t answer,’
an’ by th’ way, sir, all them nickels
I spent to call will have to go in on
th’ expense account.”

“But of course, cert ” de

Grandin began, then: “Thief, cheat,
robber, voleur! Would you make a
^monkey of me? How comes it you
would charge for calls you could not
.make ? ”

The detective grinned sheepishly,
and de Grandin patted his shoulder
with a smile. “Eh Hen, mon petit
brave,” he relented, “here is five
dollars; will that perhaps cover the
total of those nickels you did not
spend ? ’ ’

Costello leading, we entered the
Hudgekins’ elaborate suite. One
glance about the living-room, and the
Frenchman shouted with glee. “Look,
behold, see, admire!” he ordered
triumphantly. “Laugh at my face
now, Friend Trowbridge, ask me again
to explain those sacre ’phone calls!”

Before the telephone was an in-
genious device. A mechanical arm
was fastened to the receiver, while in
front of the mouthpiece was a funnel-
shaped horn connected with a phono-
graph sound-box and needle which
rested on a wax cylinder. The whole
was actuated by clockwork, and the
lever releasing the springs was at-
tached to the bell-clapper of a large
alarm clock set for fifteen minutes
after twelve.

Stooping, de Grandin turned the
clock’s hands back. As they reached
a quarter past twelve there was a
light buzzing sound, the arm lifted
the receiver from its hook, and in a
moment a deep, gruff voice we all

810

WEIRD TALES

recognized spoke into the mouthpiece :
“Hullo, this is Mr. Hudgekins. Please
have the engineer send more heat up.
Our apartment is cold as ice.” A
pause, during which a courteous hotel
official might have assured the ten-
ant his wants would be attended to,
then : ‘ ‘ Thank you, very much. Good-
night.”

“ Well ” — Costello stared open-

mouthed at the mechanism which
would have provided an unshakable
alibi in any criminal court — “well,
sors, I’ll be damned!”

“Undoubtlessly you will, unless you
mend your ways, ’ ’ de Grandin agreed
with a grin. “Meantime, as damna-
tion is a hot and thirsty business, I
vote we adjourn to Friend Trow-
bridge’s and absorb a drink.”

A Pathetic Litt/e Story Is

Across the Hall

By AUGUST W. DERLETH

AMN!”

Rodney Market threw his
pen to the floor. In so do-
ing, he turned his head slightly, and
saw a vision in white possessed of the
threshold of his room. He turned.
The girl stood with raised eyebrows,
staring severely at him. Her head
was turned a little to one side ; cocked,
one might almost say.

“Oh! pardon me. I wasn’t aware
that I had a visitor. Not really.
You’re Miss . . . Miss ...”

She did not volunteer to help him
out.

“Miss . . . from across the hall,”
he finished lamely.

She nodded almost imperceptibly.
He waited for her to say something.

“I’ve got to write a letter.”

He looked at her. She was perfect-
ly serious; a frown had jumped into
being on her forehead.

“I’ve got to write a letter,” she
said again, as if she had not said it
before. “Got to,” she repeated for
emphasis.

“Is it imperative?” he asked, smil-
ing.

“Got to,” she said again, making a
queer, mad movement with her free
hand; Rodney noticed now that she
held a pen in one of her pale, white
hands.

“What’s the matter? Bad pen, or
something?”

“No ink.”

“Won’t you come in and sit down
for a few minutes?”

“No. I ’ve got to write a letter. ’ ’

“Perhaps I can find you some ink.
Will red ink do?” he asked, looking
askance at the bottle on his desk.

“Oh ! no. I shouldn’t wish to write
in red ink. Wotild you?” She made
a wry grimace with her face.

Rodney shook his head. “Blue,
then,” he said. “The color of your
eyes. Surely blue will do ! ”

“Yes, blue will do. Blue.”

Rodney Market got the ink-bottle
out of his drawer and proffered it.
She made no step toward him. In-
stead she held the pen out and stood

ACROSS THE HALL

811

looking expectantly at him. There was
an awkward pause. He walked over
to her ; standing before her, the bottle
held in one hand, the cork in the
other, he watched her dip her pen into
the ink.

‘ ‘ Hadn ’t you better take the bottle ?
You’ll be out of ink again before
long. ’ ’

“Oh! no. This will do. Thank
you very much. ’ ’

Without another word she crossed
the hall and vanished into the room
opposite his. He stood looking after
her. He could not remember when
he had seen such an appealing girl.

The night was oppressively hot. He
went back to his desk and began
again the task at which he had been
working when the girl came. He won-
dered half-consciously what her name
was ; he was not aware that there was
a roomer across the hall. He had
been in this room only three days, and
hadn’t yet gotten the chance to
acquaint himself with his surround-
ings, least of all his fellow tenants.
He thought that he would like to
know the girl better. Suddenly a
low cough from the door interrupted
him. The girl was standing there,
holding out her pen.

“ I ’ve got to finish the letter. ’ ’ She
smiled and looked meaningly at the
bottle before him. There was just an
edge of fright in her voice, which
escaped Rodney at first. He smiled
in return and took up the ink-bottle.

“Why didn’t you take the bottle?
I won’t have any need of it until to-
morrow anyway. I can call for it
then,” he added as an afterthought.

‘ ‘ No, ’ ’ she said. ‘ ‘ I don ’t want the
bottle; I just want a little ink. It’s
just a short letter . . . just a short
one. I ’m sure I didn ’t think I ’d need
more than just one pen of ink. I’m
sorry. ...”

He went over to her again with the
bottle and stood admiring her while
she dipped her pen into the ink. He
would have to get the landlady to in-
troduce him to her in the morning. He

felt an instinctive liking for her; he
could not help hoping that she would
reciprocate it. She turned her face
upward.

‘ ‘ Thank you again. I hate to bother
you . . . but I ’ve simply got to finish
that letter. ’ ’

She moved across the hall again, a
little slower this time. At her door
she turned her head.

“Good-night.”

“Good-night,” he answered, and
smiled.

He went back into his room and left
the door open again, hoping vaguely
that she would need more ink. He sat
down to begin a letter of his own. He
wrote slowly and laboriously, “May
17, 1928;” then his pen balked again,
and he threw it from him with an ex-
clamation of disgust. He turned to-
ward the door again and again, half
expecting to see the girl there, but he
was disappointed, for she did not
again appear. At last he retired,
thinking of her, already beginning to
build air castles about her.

In the morning when he awoke, his
first thought was of her. He got into
his clothes as hastily as he could, and
went hurriedly to the bathroom, hop-
ing to see the girl on the way. But
no ; he saw nothing of her, though he
lingered as long as he dared. He sat
down and waited for the landlady,
who usually came up the stairs at
about eleven o’clock; he could always
tell when she came, for she had a
habit of dragging her broom after
her; he could always recognize the
sound. When at last she came, he
stood in the hall waiting.

‘ 1 Good morning, Mrs. Simpson. ’ ’

‘ ‘ Good morning. ’ ’

He fumbled awkwardly.

“Nice morning.”

“Pine.”

He turned to go back into his room.

“Oh! by the way, Mrs. Simpson,
I’d like to'ask a favor of you. Might

I?”

‘‘Ask away.”

“Could you . . . would you intro-

812

WEIRD TALES

dnce me to the girl who rooms across
the hall?”

For a moment the landlady
frowned ; then she started to laugh.

“Girl across the hall? What did
you have for supper last night that,
made you dream that ? There ’s not a
girl rooming in this house.”

“ Oh ! biit I say . . . but I saw her.
She came to get ink from me twice
last night.”

“Nonsense. Come on, I’ll show
you.”

The landlady fumbled among her
keys for a moment ; then she stepped
across the hall and unlocked the door
of the room. He walked into the
room after the landlady.

“Look,” she said. “Empty I Has
been for nearly ten years.”

The room was bare of furniture, ex-
cept for a rickety table off to one side.
Close to it, down on the floor, he saw a
yellow scrap of paper, elosely folded.
The landlady paid no attention to
him. He went over toward the table
and picked up the scrap of paper.
Then he noticed the pen on the dust-
covered table. It was very old, but
there was a curiously fresh blue dis-
coloration on the rusty steel point.

He opened the paper hurriedly.
There were three lines written on it
in a neat feminine hand. The last line
was broken off in the middle, as if the
pen had gone dry. Below the last
line were several oddly cryptic
scrawls, as if someone had added to
the paper at a later date. He read the
letter:

Dearest Mark:

Why didn’t yon send me the money I
asked for? It wasn’t much. I’ve got to
have it; got to . . .

Then he looked up at the date, and
was half conscious of the landlady
calling him from the threshold. He
started from the room, holding the
paper tightly in his hand.

The letter was dated “May 17,
1908.”

“Once had a girl there,” the land-
lady was saying as he stepped into the
hall. “But she had a bit of bad luck.
A man, I suspected. . . . Dam this
lock ! It always gives me trouble. ’ ’

Rodney stepped forward mechan-
ically. He started to turn the key.
“What happened to her?” he asked
in an undertone.

“The girl? Oh! she killed. herself.
Prussic acid, the doctor said.”

7he BUCK
MINA 14 H j

Y-PAsVC-fcRNJT

“They were shaken like a
stick in a whirlpool."

The Story Thus Far

I N HIS distant laboratory Professor Eden photo-
graphs and locates a hitherto unsuspected evil
genius who rules the world from an underground
palace in North Africa. At his death he sends his
adopted son. Professor Sanderson, on a crusade
against him. Sanderson joins forces with Neal
Emory, whose father has been murdered by the
machinations of the Black Monarch. They enter
the Black Kingdom and find a race of automatons
ruled by the despot, Rez. They are captured and
brought to the throneroom of Rez, who speaks to
them through the voice of a beautiful girl, Who
lies apparently lifeless beside a great blue disk.
Rez taunts them with their helplessness, demon-
strates his miraculous scientific abilities, and re-
duces Neal to an automaton by a drug which steals
away his mind. He reserves Sanderson for a sur-
gical operation to reduce him to the same condi-
tion. Sanderson, realizing that the disk is the
source of Rez’s power, instructs Neal how to
break the disk, and orders him to strike, carefully
concealing his thoughts from Rez the while, so
that the monster can not read his intention.

15. The End of the Quest

T HE fraction of a second that
followed Sanderson’s command
seemed hours long. He gazed
imploringly at Neal from the comer
of his eye. Would he remember the
desperate rehearsals in the prison
rooms below? And if he did remem-
ber — would he be able to move in
obedience ? Or was he still held by the
mental grip of Rez? In all this time
he had not moved a finger. Was it
because he could not ?

In the next instant, even as Rez
wheeled to stare at them with his chill

This story begran in WEIRD TALES for February.

813

WEIRD TALES

814

eyes, he received the answer to, his
agonized questions.

Whether it was that Rez was
actually powerless to bind mentally a
man in Neal’s' present state of mind-
lessness, or whether he had been too
sure of Neal’s docile harmlessness,
will never be known. The fact re-
mained that Neal could move. And,
at the rehearsed word of command,
move he did !

He stooped to pick up the metal
bench that was beside them. Bearing
it in his arms, he walked placidly but
swiftly toward the diamond disk.

He swung the bench back to the
full length of his arms. Behind him
Rez was bounding over the stretch of
floor. Just as the great figure leaped
at him, Neal crashed the metal bench
squarely into the center of the disk.

An instant later he flras flung
against the wall, but Rez had been
too. late. The curtain behind the disk
bellied a moment under the weight
of the dozen fragments of the shat-
tered jewel, then straightened as the
pieces fell to the floor. With hands
spread at his sides in a gesture of im-
potence and dismay, Rez surveyed
the wreck of his disk. Then, slowly,
he turned to face Sanderson.

For a dozen seconds light gray eyes
stared from spiky black beard, and
chill, distorted ones peered from metal
helmet — to clash in cold ferocity.

Then Sanderson moved his great
arms tentatively. He flexed the mus-
cles of legs and back, and experimen-
tally took a few steps to see if he were
completely free from the spell of Rez.
He was. He could move with ease —
and before him, no longer protected
by the hypnotic power of the diamond,
was his unearthly enemy.

“And now,” he rumbled, his eyes
fixed on the vulnerable airhole in the
base of the muscular throat, “we will
see whether my lifelong training has
been for nothing 1”

L ike two great panthers they sidled
slowly and alertly about each
other. Sanderson, ever watching the
chill eyes behind the thick lenses,
came a little closer and sought for an
opening. He assumed the other was
doing the same. In a moment he was
aware of his error — Rez jumped %wdy
from him and toward the curtain^
door.

Immediately Sanderson was aft&r
him. Above all things he must not be
allowed to leave the room and enlist
the help of his guards. At the very
doorway he caught up with 'him and
smashed out with his fist. His doubled
hand crashed against the metal hood,
A streak of pain told him he ’d broken
a finger. But Rez staggered back
from the entrance, plainly dazedly
the impact against his metal skull, and
in that instant Sanderson caught a
heavy table and pulled it in front of
the door. A poor barrier, but it would
impede the other for the few seconds
necessary to stop him should he try
to leave the chamber again.

As he turned from the task Rez
was upon him, and for the first time
he felt his superhuman strength to the
full. Enormous hands closed around
his throat. A great leg was curved
around his own legs. He felt himself
lifted clear of the floor and dashed
down again. But in his fall he
clutched at the broad belt around the
other’s waist, and when he fell Rez
fell too.

Both were up almost as soon as they
had touched the floor, and again they
circled warily about each other ; while
from the comer where he had been
flung after breaking the disk, Neal
watched the two giants with round,
bewildered eyes. ‘

As the two gazed at each other,
seeking for another opening, Sander-
son was frantically trying to beat
down a weakness resulting from an
unexpected thing — the feel of the skin
of Rez! In their brief grapple his
hands had recoiled involuntarily from

THE BLACK MONARCH 015

further touch. It was nauseating, the
feel of that scaly, hairless skin — so
repulsive that he felt faint from the
momentary contact.

While he wavered in his indecision,
Rez was upon him again. He was
thrown to the rock floor under the
crash of the meeting, and on him was
the great weight of Rez. Just above
him was the airhole at the base of
tlje metal helmet. He could feel the
air sucking in and blowing out as it
fed the panting lungs.

£ He wrenched his right arm free
apd, at the same instant as fingers
shut around his own throat, pressed
his hand down over the airhole. In
the clutch of those great hands he
was shaken like a child, but he kept
his palm tenaciously over the airhole
till he felt the other’s grip slacken a
trifle. Then he arched his knees under
him, kicked out with all his strength,
and was free.

A section of the rough white dra-
pery was torn from the wall as Rez
clutched it to steady himself. With
it came two of the crossed javelins
hung there in ornament. Rez snatched
up one of these, held it close to the
blade like a short-sword, and charged
Sanderson.

With a writhe of his body Sander-
son eluded the thrust, but a twinge in
his side and the feel of something
warm trickling over his skin told him
how slight had been his escape. As the
other’s hand was raised for a second
blow, he caught the descending wrist
and checked it. Then he groped for
the , airhole, but his own wrist was
grasped with a force that numbed his
arm.

The strength of Rez surpassed even
his own enormous muscular power, as
he was soon to learn. In spite of his
utmost effort, the hand that held the
javelin was pressed lower and lower,
while he was held powerless to check
its advance or tear himself free. Down
it crept, an inch at a time, until it was
within a few inches of his chest. Then
he caught a side glimpse of Neal, who

was watching them with child-like
wonder.

‘‘Neal!” he gasped. “Help me!
Hit his helmet with something!”

Neal stared about him, obviously in
search of something with which to
carry out orders.

“Your sandal ”

The point of the javelin was very
near him now.

Mechanically Neal took off one san-
dal and approached with the light
metal thing in his hand. Rez swung
the body of Sanderson as a shield be-
tween them, but a moment later Neal
reached around and swung the sandal
at the cylindrical hood.

Sanderson tore loose from the
weakened grip of his antagonist but
was not quick enough to prevent his
next move.

Rez wheeled toward Neal, who was
standing defenseless save for his san-
dal, his arms swinging harmlessly at
his side — and crashed his fist against
his head just above the ear. Neal went
down against the wall with his legs
crumpled under him like a broken
doll.

With his back toward the doorway,
Sanderson moved toward Rez, but
stopped uncertainly. The cold eyes
were looking over his shoulder, and
Rez was pointing at him in a com-
manding way. Wheeling quickly he
saw the guard leader just launching
himself from the table top. Hearing
the noise of the fight, he had evidently
broken rules for once in his life and
had come to the disk room unsum-
moned.

As he leaped and closed, Rez sprang
from the other side. But, swinging
the guard’s body like a giant pendu-
lum, Sanderson managed to check his
attack. Then he loosed his hold of the
flying body. The guard leader
smashed against the wall, his helmet
crushed down over his eyes, bleeding
from nose and mouth.

With the momentum of the swing,
Sanderson closed with Rez, now mad-
dened instead of nauseated by the

816

WEIRD TALES

feel of that dry, abhorrent skin. Dis-
regarding a rain of blows on face and
body, he clamped his hand over the
airhole again — the vulnerable spot,
this hole in the heavy throat. In-
capable now of clear thinking, he yet
remembered that. It was several sec-
onds before he was thrown off by the
convulsive ferocity of the evil mon-
ster.

He glanced toward the door, struck
by a sudden apprehension that more
guards might appear. But a moment
later this fear was laid. The disk was
broken now, and without its trans-
mitting power Rez was unable to call
help. The leaders, with their frag-
ments of the diamond in their helmets,
could receive no message through the
great parent stone. They would prob-
ably be uninterrupted in their grim
battle.

Bracing his shoulders, he met a
fresh charge from Rez, and the strug-
gle was recommenced. On and on they
fought. Rez seemed as tireless and in-
vincible as a thing of steel. Sanderson
could not down him. And meanwhile
he protected himself with increasing
difficulty from the bull-like rushes, the
tremendous clutching hands, and the
battering fists.

All that kept him up now was the
superlative training and physical
treatments he had received from Eden
and had kept up of his own volition
after Eden’s death. Almost too ex-
hausted to think, his muscles carried
him of themselves. He was nearly out,
but his body continued to function, to
stand the punishment it was receiving
from the heavier muscles of his an-
tagonist.

And always, whenever they closed,
he felt blindly for the airhole.

Back and forth over the torn car-
pet they rocked, until they were near
the wall where lay the curtain Rez
had wrenched down in his effort to
keep from falling. Here was the sec-
ond javelin of the two that had fallen
with the curtain. Rez stooped to pick

it up. Sanderson sprang toward him
to prevent it.

Raising his heavily sandaled foot,
Rez kicked him backward with all his
strength. Sanderson staggered a dozen
feet and fell to the floor. Rez caught
up the second javelin, poised it at
arm’s length, and threw it at the head
of the fallen man.

Plashing in the light of the rinay
plates, it sped toward the bearded
face. It never reached its destination.
In his fall Sanderson had grasped at
one of the metal benches. Now he
managed to swing it in front of him
before the spear could reach him. It
glanced from the smooth surface as
though fx’om a shield and ripped into
the carpet a dozen paces beyond.

Rez reached up for another javelin,
but before he could get it Sanderson
whirled the heavy bench at him with
all his remaining strength. Rez caught
most of the force of the blow on his
huge arms, but a comer of the bench
went beyond his guard and smashed
against the cylindrical hood.

The impact plainly jarred the brain
beneath the metal. Rez was dazed for
a moment, and showed it. He moved
his grotesque skull slowly to right and
left as though trying to shake loose
from an enveloping fog, and behind
the heavy lenses his eyes blinked un-
certainly.

Leaping to follow up the advantage,
Sanderson flung himself on his an-
tagonist, his hand coming down over
the vulnerable airhole as he closed.
This time it looked as though he were
to be successful in holding it there.
Shaken like a stick in a whirlpool by
the frenzied effort of Rez to loose
himself, he clung to his grip. The
great body under him grew markedly
weaker. . . .

Then Rez drew away a few inches,
bent his artificial head back, and
brought it down on Sanderson’s tem-
ple like a club with all the weight of
his powerful neck behind the blow.

THE BLACK MONARCH

817

Sanderson ’sfjfrip was relaxed, and
Rez staggered free.

His feet touched something near
the end curtain — the fragments of the
broken disk. Instantly he picked one
up and threw it at Sanderson. It
caught him on the shoulder, and a;
jagged streak of red marked where its
edge had struck.

Swaying unsteadily, seeing his
nightmare opponent through the mists
of exhaustion, Sanderson moved to
attack him again. It was his last at-
tempt and he knew it. There would
be no more reserves of strength on
Which to call if he failed in this final
effort to overcome the devil with the
metal skull.

He lurched blindly toward the dim-
ly seen figure and lashed out with his
fist. Again he landed on the metal
hood — with his broken hand. But the
pain was welcome. It slashed across
the veils of fading consciousness for
an instant, and braced him like a
plunge into cold water.

On his cheek he felt the gasping
breaths from the airhole. There was
blood around it now, where the metal
rim had eut into the encircling flesh
with the straining of the throat mus-
cles. If he could cover that for a
moment

Circling the thick torso with his
right arm, he caught the right wrist
of Rez and forced it up and across
in a wrestling hold. Then he twisted
his legs around the legs of his op-
ponent and threw him heavily to the
floor. In the fall his left hand sought
the airhole and clamped down over it
with the firmness of despair.

Rez tore fiercely at the imprisoning
hand, and pushed his fist into the
sweaty, bearded face above him, but
Sanderson kept his hold. He ignored
the wrenching fingers that sought his
own throat in a last attempt to dear
the distressing hand away from the
airhole. Ever more firmly he pressed
down on the screened opening through
which Rez breathed and therefore
lived.

W.T.— 3

The great body under him moved
more and more sluggishly. The hand
that sought to throttle him, to push
his face away, hurt him not at all —
due to the deadened condition of his
own nerves as much as to the failing
force of his antagonist.

As before, Rez brought his head
forward on Sanderson’s temple like a
club. But this time, stretched on the
floor as he was with no room given
him for a back swing, and with his
neck held almost immovable by the
professor’s right hand, the blow did
little harm.

Suddenly he was struggling no
longer, writhing and twisting no
more. Under the weight of the earth-
man he had mocked, he lay still, gone
at last to the death to which he had
condemned so many others in the
thousands of years of his unnatural
and monstrous life.

For moments Sanderson kept his
hand pressed against the airhole in
the now rigid throat. It did not occur
to him that there was no longer need
of the deadly grip. He did not notice
that the heavy limbs of the devil
beneath him had ceased to twitch and
jerk. Indeed he was beyond conscious
thought, holding himself from faint-
ing by sheer force of will. All that he
could recollect was that he must keep
his hand pressed over the hole. He
must not relax his grip. He must

The overstrained body bore down
the last barrier of blind will. He
sighed deeply. His eyes closed, jerked
feebly open, closed again. He sagged
against the body of the evil genius he
had conquered, rolled from it, and lay
senseless by its side.

16 . The Escape

A uttui later Sanderson opened his
eyes and gazed bewilderedly
around at the wrecked disk room.
Then he saw the body of Rez lying
huge and motionless beside him, and
he got quickly to his feet as memory

818

WEIRD TALES

caught up With the events that had
taken place.

In one corner Neal lay unconscious.
Sanderson went over to him and began
to chafe his hands in an attempt to
bring him to. There was a lump on
his head above his right ear, but there
seemed to be no other injury. He
touched the spot tentatively, and Neal
stirred and sat up.

“I bumped my head,” he mur-
mured, and Sanderson’s heart sank at
the blank look in his eyes. Rez was
dead, but the injury done to Neal by
his devilish drug still persisted.

Neal gazed at him with a pleased
expression. “I broke the circle,” he
said proudly. 4 4 I did everything you
told me, didn’t I?”

“Yes,” said the professor With a
sigh. “You saved our lives and made
it possible for me to accomplish tny
mission — but God knows if you’ll ever
be able to realize it!”

He stopped as Neal stared wonder-
ingly over his shoulder.

“Look!” he said. “The pretty
lady!”

Sanderson turned then to see what
he was pointing at, and gasped with
surprize at what he saw.

' In the opening made by the fallen
curtain near the broken disk stood a
graceful, white-robed figure. A girl.

Her face was firmly molded and
beautiful. Her hair was dark and!
lustrous in the light of the rinay
plates. She swayed a little, and it was
seen that she was hardly aisle to stand
upright. Her cheeks were white as
the garment that covered her; but
even as Sanderson stared at her he
saw a tinge of color touch them, saw
her sway less uncertainly as she grew
accustomed to standing again. Her
eyes, brown with a tinge of gold in
them, regarded the room confusedly,
and finally looked questioningly at the
bearded giant who was watching her.

Then she saw the great form on the
stone floor, and she shrank back with
a gasp of terror. She spoke, and it was
the voice that had issued from the

disk, but now it was a,.voice warm
with life.

“What — what is tins place! Why
am I here?” Her eyes fell on the
grotesque form of Rez again. “That
head!” she whispered. “The night-
mare dreams I’ve had! ...”

Sanderson felt Neal stir restlessly,
and as he turned to look at him he
thought he saw a light of intelligence
struggling to return to the blue of his
eyes.

“The voice!” he murmured; “the
voice ” But he could get no far-

ther on his backward mental jour-
neying.

Ho rose and walked toward the girl
with a child-like smile on his face!-!—
an expression so at variance with the
breadth of his shoulders and ' the
stubble of beard on his face that she
drew away from him and glanced; ap-
pealingly at the professor.

“It’s all right,”' said Sanderson.
“He won’t hurt you.”

“But who is he? And why am I
here?”

“Don’t you remember how you got
here?”

“I remember nothing,” she said.
‘“Nothing! I was walking along the
road near the hotel at Hammam
Meskoutine in the evening, and some
men dressed as Arabs approached., I
felt a cloth pressed against my mouth
and nose — and after that I remember
nothing until now. Only ’ ’ — she shud-
dered and pointed — “only that awful
head! It seemed as though I were
sleeping and trying to wake up. And
I would see that head ”

“You’ve been asleep,” said Sander-
son. “But very soundly! How long
have you been here, Miss ”

“My name is Eileen Sanger. It
was November tenth that the Arabs
captured me ”

‘ ‘ They were no Arabs, Miss Sanger.
They were of a far more exotic race!
And it is now some time in March. ”

“But ” she began helplessly.

Sanderson interrupted her. “I’ll
explain something of this to you later.

THE BLACK MONARCH

819 .

Now we must leave at once before
we ’re recaptured. ’ ’

“You’re hurt,” she protested,
catching sight of the red stain on his
tunic and moving toward him.

“It’s only a scratch. Come, we
must go. At once ! ’ ’

With the girl on one side of him
and Neal moving mechanically on the
other, he started down the broad
steps that led from the disk room.

A t the last turn of the stairs he
motioned for them to wait while
he went ahead to see if any of the
lieutenants were in the guardroom.
In a moment he came back up around
the bend, his finger to his lips.

“There’s one of the leaders in there
now,” he whispered. “But they’re
changing the guard, and he’ll prob-
ably be leaving soon. ”

On tiptoe they filed after him, Neal
grinning delightedly at the interesting
game they were playing, and clinging
to the girl’s hand. They peered cau-
tiously into the guardroom; the leader
was no longer in sight.

As calmly as they might, the three
walked among the motionless puppets
of Rez’s guard, out the door, and
down the ramp to the floor of the
tremendous cavern in the middle of
which was the bizarre double palace
of Rez — the palace that was now only
a great tomb for the ruler it had
housed so long.

Sanderson glanced hurriedly around
the edge of the cave till he found the
tunnel Rez had so mockingly shown
them in the disk — the tunnel that led
eventually to the normal world above
them. Quickly they traversed the
great floor and entered the passage
mouth.

The professor sighed with relief,
then, and slackened their pace as
much as he dared in consideration of
the girl. Eileen was very weak after
her long spell of hypnotic inactivity.
Sanderson marveled that she could
walk at all, and he could only con-
clude that whatever food essence had

been fed her during that long un-
consciousness must be far more
strength-sustaining than any he knew
of.

“I think we’re safe now,” he said
to her. “As we go I’ll try to explain
things to you briefly — give you some
idea of the devil who kept you prison-
er all this time, and how it is that my
unfortunate young friend thinks he
knows your voice. ...”

I n the room of the disk, the guard
leader whom Sanderson had left
for dead stirred and sat up with a
moan. Stonily he gazed at the gigantic
figure with the metal head. It told
him nothing. Neither he nor any other
man of Rez had ever seen that head —
and lived to tell of it afterward. Be-
cause the fallen giant had pointed at
the man with the black beard, he had
attacked him. He did not know clear-
ly why he had obeyed the gesture,
save that there had been something
commanding in it — something that
inspired in him the same feeling of
obedience he experienced when com-
manded by the disk.

Here he gazed at the place where
the diamond used to be — and scram-
bled to his feet. This was something
he could understand! The blue di-
amond, the mouthpiece of the god,
Rez, was destroyed. It could only
have been done by the man with the
beard, or by the smaller man with
him. They must be caught and
brought back to the god for punish-
ment!

He spVang down the stairs to the
guardroom and shouted a command.
With the precision of machinery the
men formed into a double file and fol-
lowed him at a run-down the ramp
and out onto the floor of the central
cavern. One of the guards there was
questioned, and answered by raising
his arm and pointing to the tunnel
entrance over which was the symbolic
mural monster.

Toward this the men sped, follow-
ing the disheveled, bloody figure of

WEIRD TALES

their leader, to capture the ones who
had dared to break the blue diamond
of Rez, and to bring them back for
punishment.

A S SANDERSON finished his brief out-
line, the girl looked up at him
with wonder in her eyes.

“So you destroyed this evil power
just as you set out to do so many years
ago!” she exclaimed. “Why, it’s
more wonderful than the winning of
the greatest battle ever fought! If
the world knew ”

“I’m afraid the world wouldn’t be-
lieve it even if it were told,” said
the professor dryly. “But I didn’t
do it for medals or votes of thanks.
And I’m not the only one to be
praised, remember. I devoted my life
to the cause — but Neal has given his
mind!”

Eileen touched Neal’s arm gently.

“Will he always be like this?”*

“No, he’ll probably learn all over
again to be a man, just as any child
grows to manhood in the course of
time. . .

At that instant they rounded a bend
in the tunnel and saw before them
the blank wall that had been shown
them in the disk.

“Here we are!” said Sanderson
thankfully. “And there’s the lever
that swings the door. ...”

He stopped abruptly to listen.
Behind them came a noise of sandaled
feet on the rock floor, and even as
Eileen gazed fearfully at him, the
pursuing Rezians rounded the turn
and poured toward them.

With an exclamation Sanderson
leaped for the lever and pulled it
down. At the pressure the roek door
trembled slightly, then began to slide
up in its invisible grooves.

“Under it!” cried the professor.
“Roll under it!”

They leaped to obey him. He
jammed the lever to its closed position
and, as the door began to slide down-
ward, he threw all his weight side-
ways and snapped the heavy metal

strip close to its slot in the stone.
Then he rolled under the slab and
joined them in safety on the other
side.

But though the pursuers could not
follow them, at the order of their
leader they did something else almost
as alarming. They bent down to the
diminishing space under the descend-
ing door and shouted. Twice they
yelled in chorus before the thick slab
ground down and cut off the noise as
a knife slashes a string. Ahead of the
escaping prisoners the sound, through ;
some trick of acoustics, echoed along
the tunnel in a warning roar that did
not die completely for several seconds. :

Sanderson frowned anxiously as
they hurried down the passage to the
outer gate of the kingdom. Unless he
was mistaken, that had been a signal
of warning to the men in the outpost.
And of these, as he remembered it,
there were twelve!

Hastily he sketched the situation to
Eileen.

“This is what we’ll do,” he said.
“In this cave we’re approaching there
is another lever arrangement like the
first. We’ll charge the place and run
for the lever. You will press it down
while Neal and I hold the guards away
from you. As soon as the door swings
up you two roll under it. Then I’ll
start it down, break off the lever as I
did before, and join you. You under-
stand?”

“Yes.”

“And you, Neal? You ’re to keep
anyone from hurting Eileen. You
don’t want Eileen to be hurt, do
you?”

Neal scowled. “No!” he said, shak-
ing his head vigorously. “No! I
wouldn ’t let anyone hurt her. Ever ! ”

Eileen pressed his arm, and smiled
at Sanderson though her lips were
pallid with alarm.

Soon they drew near to the outer
cave — the last outpost of the leader-
less kingdom of Rez. Could they win
through that, they would be free. A
narrow passage, a crevice of soft dirt

THE BLACK MONARCH

821

that could be easily widened to admit
their passage; and they would stand
in the direct light of sky again in-'
stead of in the reflected light of the
metal plates.

At length Sanderson was able to
look ahead and see the entrance of the
outpost cave. Drawn up across it,
stiffly forbidding, were the twelve
guards. The entrance was wide, and,
to -reach across it, the little band had
to stand in a single line; but they
stood close together, and it looked im-
possible to break through even for a
moment ’s work at the lever.

* Sanderson stooped and picked up
two large rock fragments, motioning
Neal to do the same.

Throw at the two men on the
right side,” he whispered. “That
side, there. I’ll take the two at the
left.”

.Drawing back his arm for a throw,
Sanderson suddenly sprang from
behind the boulder that had concealed
them momentarily, and ran forward
with Neal and Eileen close behind.

Before the puppets could move,
both on the professor’s end had
dropped under his throws, made from
such short range that it was almost
impossible to miss; and one on the
right went down with a broken head
under Neal ’s cast, while the man next
td him doubled up under the force of
a rock that caught him in the stomach.

Without an instant’s pause they
rushed forward. The two center men
reached for Sanderson. There was a
sickening sound as their heads were
smashed together. Another was bowled
out of the way — and the giant profes-
sor had cleared a path for the two
behind him.

“To the lever!” he shouted; and
Eileen ran across the cave. But there
she paused uncertainly. There were
two.

“Which lever?” she called to him.
“The yellow one?”

“My God, no!” cried Sanderson,
the words of Rez ringing in his ears :
the one of yellow metal starts in

motion the process of measured vibra-
tion that caused the rock slide. . . .

“Pull the gray lever!” he shouted.
“The gray ”.

He was surrounded by the men of
Rez, the heart of a whirling group
that now and then split apart to show
him in its center, indomitably lashing
out with his great arms.

Eileen pressed the lever indicated.
Two of the guards jumped toward
her. “Neal ” she implored.

A struggling mass of three fighting
figures suddenly disentangled itself,
and Neal leaped between the girl and
the. advancing pair. The glare of his
eyes as he faced the two was appal-
ling. He was like an animal gone mad.
They hesitated an instant before con-
tinuing their rush, and as they
wavered he took the initiative him-
self. One crumpled backward as a
fist crashed against his unprotected
body just above the heart. The other
went down with Neal on top and feel-
ing for his throat.

On the opposite side the professor
was more than holding his own. His
great fists were performing deadly
work among the men of Rez who had
never before seen a man hit with his
bare fists and who had no notion of
how to guard themselves. One he
caught fairly in the chest with his
swollen right hand. It was excruci-
atingly painful to hit with that hand,
but he had no chance to spare it.
With this blow he felt the flesh give
under his knuckles, felt rather than
heard a dull snap — and the guard
went down with a broken collarbone.

Meanwhile the door was responding
to the touch of the lever. Up it slid,
revealing a narrow dark passage with
a crack of light in the far distance
that was unlike the eternal sun-yellow
of the rinay plates — for this was the
gray light of a clouded sky. Now
there was room to roll under the
door. . . .

The guards charged with new fury
at the escaping prisoners. For a mo-
ment Neal was down and helpless, but

WEIRD TALES

822

Sanderson managed to win clear of
his own assailants and help him up
again.

Behind him the guard with the
broken collarbone was creeping pain-
fully toward the two levers.

“Run!” the professor commanded.
“I can hold them a little longer.”

But Neal was deaf to his order. One
of the guards had caught Eileen by
the arm in an attempt to drag her
away from the door, and Neal had
gone more berserk than ever.

“Run, I say!” gasped Sanderson.
“Eileen — make him go with you!”

At the touch of her hand, Neal
quieted a little and allowed himself
to be urged out of the fight. Reluc-
tantly he followed her under the
door, which was almost at the top of
its swing.

Sanderson redoubled his efforts to
throw off the figures that leaped and
clung to him. He must somehow win
enough time to reach the lever and
start the door down again.

Unseen behind him, crawling slowly
along the rock wall, the guard with
the broken collarbone edged his way
toward the door. His eyes were fixed
unblinkingly on the lever block, as
though, that being his goal, he would
draw strength enough from its sight
to allow him to reach it.

The professor stumbled and nearly
fell over a motionless body at his feet.
Quickly he stooped and picked it up.
As the others charged he threw it at
them with all the power left him, and
won a second’s breathing space.

Neal and Eileen were through in
safety. All that remained was to start
the door on its descent, beat off the
guard for just a moment or two
longer, and then join them.

He jammed the lever up and threw
his weight against it to break it off as
he had the other one. . . .

The lever did not break. It bent in
his hands till it lay at right angles
along the slotted block of stone in
which it moved. But break it would
not!

And now his short, interval of free-
dom was over. Back came the rem-
nant of the guard, their number
swelled by the one whom Neal had hit
in the stomach with his rock. They
seemed not to know pain, these pup-
pets of the black kingdom. Man by
man Sanderson hurled them to the
floor, flung them aside, knocked them,
over; but man by man they came on.
Never for an instant did he have an
opportunity of tearing entirely free,
from their clutching hands.

He was drugged with exhaustion,
and his right hand was swollen into a
small pillow that hurt no one but him-
self when he struck with it. His blows
were not crippling any longer. Under
their impact the automatons found it
easier and easier to rise and renew
their charges.

The door had reached a fatally low
level in its slow, even descent. In a
few more seconds it would have swung
too low for him to pass under it. . . .’

Beside it the guard with the broken
collarbone stopped in his painful
crawling, his goal reached at last.

Laboriously he reached for one of
the levers — the yellow one. He
couldn’t quite grasp it — groped up
again. The effort was too much for
him. As he made a last attempt his
eyes closed and he fell back to the
floor. t r

But, clenched in his unconscious
hand, moving down as he moved, was
the yellow lever!

“Coming!” As though from a
great distance, Eileen’s cry reached
Sanderson’s dulled hearing. “Oh,
Neal!” he heard an instant later.
“They must have got him! The
door’s almost closed and he’s still
in ”

The enormous slab of rock thudded
into place and Sanderson could hear
no more.

He was terribly weak. The super-
human exertions of his fight with Rez,
the killing pain of his broken hand,
the impossible odds in the outer cave,
had entirely worn him out.

THE BLACK MONARCH

823

Working his way back toward the
levers, He fhttiblea behind him with
his puffed right hand while pounding
away with Ms left. The bent lever
coaid not be moved. Unless there
were some auxiliary mechanism of
control the door would never be
opened to let him out.

The still figure of the guard by the
block at his feet, he was unable to
see. Nor did he see the ominous yellow
lever pulled down to its last notch by
the rigid hand.

And now the solid rock of the floor
beneath him seemed to sway and
tremble. He brushed his hand wearily
across his eyes. Under the rush of
two of the guards he staggered for a
moment, then recovered Ms balance.
His recovery was only momentary.

Three more charged him. Hitting
out at them feebly, he fell. . * . ' -

I N the narrow dirt passage outside,
Eileen stared, horrified, at the
closed door. Through it no slightest
sound issued, and the silence, after
the noise of fighting, was as oppressive
as the silence of a crypt. Behind the
thick barrier, hopelessly walled in,
was Sanderson — gigantic, heroic San-
derson. Could nothing be done to help
him?

At her impulsive direction, Neal
put his fingers under the great slab
and tried to raise it. The effort was
useless, of course ; a crane could
hardly have lifted it. The block was
as immovable as the solid wall in
which it was set.

For a few moments she waited
there, hoping to the last that the door
would swing up again and the profes-
sor Would come to meet them. Then
she turned to Neal.

“We won't help him any by just
standing here,” she said with a bro-
ken sigh that showed how near she
was to utter collapse. “Let’s enlarge
the passage so it will be big enough to
get out of when — if — he does win
through.”

“All right,” Neal agreed; “what
shall I do now?”

“Dig,” said Eileen, setting him an
example with her own slim hands.

There was only a yard or so of the
too narrow crevice that needed to be
widened. The walls were of soft,
crumbing mold, easy to tear loose
even with unaided fingers. In a few
minutes they should be through with
their task. But as they worked some-
thing occurred that spurred them on
to frantic haste.

The earth around them began to
tremble. It swayed rhythmically back
and forth, its motion gradually in-
creasing in violence till it was like the
rocking of a tall building in a gale of
wind. There was something measured
and deliberate about the movement.
It was like the swinging of a long sus-
pension bridge under regularly
marching feet — oscillating more and
more in response to the measured foot-
falls until the whole structure is set
in dangerous motion by a few pounds
weight.

“Hurry!” cried Eileen. “It’s an
earthquake!” ’

Behind them a large section of
earth loosened and fell from the roof
of the passage. Dirt began to pour
down on them in ever growing
clumps. But now Neal was so nearly
through that he could reach his head
and arm out the opening. With a
heave of his back, he broke the ground
clear and crawled free.

Eileen reached her hand toward
him and he caught it quickly, pulling
her toward him into the clear air.
Just as she was half through the
entrance, however, she exclaimed and
bit her lip with sudden pain as a large
piece of dirt fell on her ankle. And
hardly had she left the tunnel mouth
than the whole passage caved.

Confusedly they looked around
them.

'T'hev had emerged at the base of a
small mound of earth completely
covered with bushes and thorn-trees.

824

WEIRD TALES

No one would have dreamed that in
the midst of the harmless-looking bank
of vegetation there was an entrance
leading down to a vast subterranean
city.

The mound was at the foot of Block
Mountain, hardly four hundred yards
away from it. As they lay there,
clinging dazedly to the rocking earth,
Neal raised his hand and pointed to
the great, square hill of gray rock.

“Look!” he cried. “ It is moving ! ”

It was. Huge pieces were being
chipped from its swaying sides, some
of them rolling down the slope of the
hill and coming dangerously near to
their place of refuge. Cracks ap-
peared in its cliffs, which widened
even as they gazed at them. The
mountain seemed to be dancing, to be
capering monstrously in time to some
measured drum-beat.

The spectacle could not endure
much longer — it was impossible for
rock to stand that shaking without fly-
ing to pieces.

With a last increase in violence the
earth about them quaked and tilted.
Olive- and palm-trees for hundreds of
yards around were uprooted and flung
down. Huge gaps appeared in the
earth, and closed and opened like dry
wounds in the heaving breast of a
giant. A fountain of water shot up to
incredible heights as the underground
lake was compressed to rebellion by
the collapse of a great section of its
rock covering.

And then with a roar that left them
stunned and deafened for hours after-
ward, Block Mountain, in a boiling
cloud of rock dust, sank in upon
itself as though the foundation had
been jerked from under it. For an
average of a hundred feet, it dropped,
thousand-ton fragments of stone
piling up on one another like beach
pebbles tossed in the waves of the sea.

Beneath it, with a mountain for a
tombstone, was the annihilated king-
dom of Rez — and Professor Eden San-
derson, its destroyer.

17. The New Era

I n all the newspapers of the world
there was announcement of a new
peace pact signed by the powers of
Europe, Asia and America. True, this
announcement was located generally
on the inside pages. As usual the man
in the street had been unaware that
war threatened. But many a gray-
bearded statesman sighed with relief
at the news. What had caused the last
moment aversion to war they did npt
know— nor care. Peace was the im-
portant fact. Peace — when all t,he
signs had pointed to red struggle!

In the same papers began to be
printed evei*-growing lists of endow-
ments by wealthy men of all nations.
A wave of philanthropy swept the
earth, as inexplicable as it was ben-
eficial. Philosophers of every race ob-
served the wholesale, kindly changes
and wondered at their cause, gome
astrologers spoke of heavenly disturb-
ances, claiming that the puzzling red
spot on Jupiter was the reason for the
unbelievably prosperous and peaceful
era.

All knew that an enormous change
for the better had taken place on
earth. All wondered vaguely what
had brought it about. But in all the
world only one person knew the an-
swer to the benevolent riddle.

At the moment when China and
America were celebrating the second
anniversary of their initial peace pact,
this knowledgeable person, a girl with
lustrous dark hair who wore a curious
blue diamond ring on her finger, sat
in the office of a famous brain special-
ist and watched him apply various
mental tests to an unremarkable-look-
ing young man with wide blue eyes
and the perplexed, searching appear-
ance of one who tries to remember
some half-forgotten thing.

The specialist rose, on terminating
the examination, and motioned for her
to go with him to another room.
“He's coming along splendidly,”

THE BLACK MONARCH

he said when they were out of the
patient’s ihharing. “You say he re-
members his life up until the time he
went abroad after his father’s
death?”

“Most of it,” the girl replied.
“There are still occasional blind spots.
Now and then he’ll meet some old ac-
quaintance without recognizing him,
and a few incidents of his later years
•With his father are gone. But the
only section of his life that remains
completely blank is what happened
after he sailed on the cruise boat.”

* ‘ Hmm. That was about the time he
took the drug, wasn’t it?”

“Yes, it was shortly afterward.”

“I wish you could tell me the name
•f the drug. I’ve never heard of any
with so lasting an effect on the mind. ’ ’

“I don’t know what it was my-
self,” murmured the girl.

“And how did you say he came to
take it?” probed the specialist.

Eileen smiled to herself as she
imagined how the doctor would re-
ceive a detailed account of the circum-
stances in which Neal had lost his

826

memory. Professor Sanderson — Rez —
the metal skull — the crusade. He
would probably insist on treating
her as a patient, too, if she told him
of the heroic quest of the big, black-
bearded scientist.

“I didn’t say,” she evaded his in-
terrogation. Then she changed the
subject. “In your opinion he is en-
tirely normal again ? ’ ’

“Save for that one blank spot in
his memory — yes. And I suppose you
can inform him on that if you
choose ? ’ ’

“I know most of his story,” she ad-
mitted. “And some day soon I’ll tell
him about it.” She rose and drew on
her gloves. “Thank you a thousand
times for your help and kindness.”

“There’s nothing to thank me for,
Mrs. Emory,” answered the doctor.
“Though it might have taken a little
longer, eventually your husband
would have recovered just as well
without my services. After all, the
only thing a specialist is able to do is
aid nature on her course. ...”

The new era was complete.

[THE END]

A Bizarre Weird-Scientific Story

The Frog

By GRANVILLE S. HOSS

T* OVEMBEB 4th . — It has long
/\/ been my Contention that the
-A. v great difference in the in-
telligence and advancement of man,
in comparison with the lower animals,
has not been due to any innate supe-
riority or peculiar advantage arbi-
trarily bestowed by the creator. I
have held the theory that man ’s lead-

ership of all created life has been due
to the more rapid absorption by his
brain of certain chemical properties
which have tended to promote growth
of the brain cells with corresponding
expansion of his intellect.

I have believed that if it were pos-
sible to reduce to concrete form the
chemical elements which have given

826

WEIRD TALES

growth and development to the mind
of man, it would be possible to inject
the resulting substance into the brain
of one of the lower forms of life and
raise the subject of the experiment to
the intellectual level of man.

This thought first came to me in
my college days. It has been with me
throughout all the years since that
time. Never but once have I shared
these views with another. Fifteen
years ago I admitted my closest
friend, Dr. Mark Potter, to my
thoughts. I talked enthusiastically
and at length, giving in detail what
I considered substantial reasons for
my conclusions, ending by suggesting
that he join me in the effort to verify
the deductions at which I had ar-
rived.

His laughter was like a basin of ice
water dashed in my face. “Illing-
ham,” he cried, “you are crazy, or
soon will be if you continue to dwell
on such thoughts. Forget that idle
twaddle and give your time to ad-
vancing in your profession. One way
leads to fortune and renown; the
other, to the madhouse."

I made no reply to this tirade, but
changed the conversation and for the
remainder of the time we were to-
gether discussed the latest issue of
the Medical and Surgical Review.

But my efforts were continued. My
leisure hours and for the past ten
years my whole time has been given
to what has become the one absorbing
interest of my life, and now I am
ready for the final grand test. I shall
soon know if the years have been
wasted or if I have found one of the
great secrets of life.

I am too nervous to write any more
tonight. I must go out for a walk.

November 5th. — While this diary
is not meant to be seen by other eyes
than my own, I shall nevertheless not
go into details of the composition of
my brain serum, as life is uncertain
and the record might fall into the
hands of others. It has been a weary
task to gain the small phial of the

precious substance now Reposing in
my safe. In order to get it, I have
been many times guilty of what the
law pronounces to be serious crimes.
I have not hesitated to violate the
grave and betray the most sacred
trusts. If failure is my portion,
then my life will have been worse
than wasted. In that event I shall
not face the light of another day, but
seek rest in Nirvana. On the other
hand, success will wipe clean the slate
and I will have added inestimably to
the world’s knowledge. The veil
which hides many of the phenomena
of earthly life will have been pierced.

November 8th. — For three days I
have been attempting to decide on a
subject for the final great test. Shall
it be bird, beast or reptile? In my
opinion, any specimen will answer.
As my supply of brain serum is very
limited, I think I shall select a small
creature; so if the results are not
immediately what I expect, I can dis-
continue the injections and select
some other species. I must give this
matter the thought it deserves.

November 11th. — My decision is
made. I have chosen a bullfrog, a
fine, healthy fellow which I obtained
from the lake adjacent to the city. I
have constructed him a home in my
laboratory, a small pool of cement
with a bottom of mud and water
plants. My greatest difficulty will be
suitable food, but I think it can be
managed. Tonight I shall administer
the first injection of brain serum. I
am nervous and laboring under great
excitement. This will not do. I must
be calm.

November 12th. — Mr. Frog with-
stood the operation beautifully. I was
quite alarmed at first, as he lay in a
comatose state for an hour and wa3
quite dazed for a much longer period.
He is active now. I am unable to
observe any change in him, unless it
is that he moves about more than
formerly. I feel much encouraged.
The results are all I have hoped for
from the first tiny injection of serum..

THE FROG

827

Xobeih&Sr 17th. — Eureka ! Success
has attended me. After three more
injections of serum, my frog shows
unmistakable signs of an awakening
intelligence. He starts at sudden
noises, and, instead of at once plung-
ing into the basin, he immediately
faces in the direction from whence
they come, seeming to ponder the
cause. He apparently watches me as
I move about the room and seems to
have no fear. He spends less time in
the water and moves about the room
in a restless manner. I wish now my
Selection had been different. A crea-
ture higher in the scale of life — a
monkey, for instance — might in time
|iave been taught to communicate with
trie. However, it is too late now for
regrets and I shall keep on with the
frog. T

.■ November 25th. — Undoubtedly, my
theory has been proven correct. Each
‘day my frog grows in intelligence. He
patches my every movement and
Observes me at my meals, which I
have formed the habit of preparing in
my laboratory, where I also sleep. At
first he would eat nothing but insects,
but the other day I tried, him with a
small piece of vegetable on the end of
my knife. His tongue at once seized
the morsel, which he promptly swal-
lowed. Since then, he always par-
takes with me when I eat. He seems
to be losing his appetite for insects,
for when offered a fly alongside a tiny
bit from my plate, he rejected the fly
for the other. He spends less and less
time in the water.

I have been under a nervous strain
since commencing the experiment and
seem unable to throw it off. This
positively will not do. I must relax.

' November 30th. — My frog has de-
veloped a memory. He has seemed
to recognize me for several days, and
when I enter the room from an ex-
cursion to the outside he hops toward
me with every appearance of delight,
uttering queer little croaking noises.
Lpst night I offered him a small por-
tion of food sprinkled with quinine

powder; he accepted it, but immedi-
ately emitted a raucous cry and at-
tempted to eject the bitter dose. He
acted completely disgusted, moved
from my vicinity and would have
nothing more to do with me the whole
evening. This episode is full of
interest.

December 4th. — Mr. Bullfrog has
become quite an imitator. He not
only follows me about, seemingly
interested in my every movement,
but tonight attempted to stand up-
right. He was only partly successful,
maintaining his balance for but a few
seconds, then falling to the floor. He
also tries to use his hands, keeping
one continually moving, while resting
on the other. He picks up small
articles,; such as match sticks and any
other tiny objects he finds in his way.
I now call him and he responds. He
quails at a note of anger in my voice,
much in the manner of a puppy. In
the light of my present success, I now
wish more than ever I had selected
some creature higher in the scale of
life for the experiment. However, it
is too late. My malady increases. My
nights are broken.

December 10th. — I am disappoint-
ed. While my frog develops in mind
each day, I can now see that he has
not a human mind and never will
have. His brain might expand to the
utmost in cunning, but it would still
be reptilian. I experienced an ex-
ample of this a few nights ago. I
crossed the room hurriedly in answer
to the ringing of the telephone and
stepped on one of the frog ’s feet, with
the result that he is now a cripple. He
uttered a loud cry, sprang upon my
foot and attempted to bite me. Of
course this was impossible, consider-
ing that he has no teeth, but his ac-
tions quite shocked me. He now will
have nothing to do with me, backing
away at my approach and uttering
ribald raucous cries. I know of no
other words to describe his noise. He
has formed a bitter hatred for me,
watching me unceasingly with what

828

WEIRD TALES

appears to be a baleful glare in his
eyes, ready at my first movement in
his direction to back away with his
awful cries.

December 15th . — My old nervous
disorder has returned upon me with
full vigor. I have been unable to
sleep for three nights and suppose I
shall have to go back to drugs in order
to get necessary sleep. The frog still
refuses all my friendly advances and
exhibits an unholy cunning.

December 20th . — Last night I en-
joyed the first sound sleep I have had
for a week, but was awakened in the
most extraordinary manner, which
would be ridiculous were it not for
the shattered condition of my nerves.
I was aroused by a cold sensation on
my chest, to find the frog seated
there, his little hands gripping my
throat and apparently attempting to
the utmost of his puny strength to
strangle me. At my first awakening,
he leaped to the floor and retreated to
his pool, uttering his unearthly cries,
which to my half-aroused senses
seemed to be charged with threats. I
wish I could kill the monster, but can
not. He seems like a creature of my
own creation, being, as he is, the cul-
minating result of years of prepara-
tion.

December 22nd . — I was reawakened
last night in the same ghoulish man-
ner, with the addition that this time
he was attempting to bite. Had he
been gifted with fangs, they would
certainly have been buried in my
throat. I shall be compelled to con-
fine the beast if this continues, I won-
der if ray snores annoy him. I am
aware that I snore dreadfully and
know it must be worse than ever when
sleep is induced by artificial means,
as is now necessary with me. Any-
way, the hatred of the frog is mount-
ing, as shown by attacks on two suc-
cessive nights.

December 23rd. — Again ! This time
the rascal was clawing and tearing at
my mouth. As I sat up, he leaped to

the floor and hurried tp his pool,
where I heard him plunge in. His
cries were fearful, baleful, and to my
drug-clouded senses, laden with warn-
ing. This positively will not do. To-
day I shall build a fine wire fence
about his pool. Let him use the brain
I have given him and climb out if he
can.

Extract from the Evening Star,
December 24th

Dr. John Illingham, a well known retired
physician of this city, was discovered dead
in his bed today. Death was due to strangu-
lation. Lodged firmly in his throat, as
though he had made an effort to swallow
it, was a full grown bullfrog.

Medical examination disclosed the fact
that Dr. Illingham had been in the habit
of using large quantities of drugs, and it
has been suggested that he had become
temporarily insane and attempted to swal-
low the frog. Only a crazed man would
attempt such a feat. The frog was quite
dead when removed from the throat of the
deceased.

In the combined laboratory and bedroom,
where the body was discovered, a small con-
crete pool had been built and around it
erected a fine wire fence about five feet in
height.

A strange diary was found among Dr.
Illingham’s effects, which seems to bear out
the insanity theory. In this diary is men-
tioned the name of Dr. Mark Potter, a well
known physician of this city. In the absence
of any known relatives or Dr. Illingham,
the diary has been turned over to Dr.
Potter.

Statement by Dr. Mark Potter

I have read the diary of my old
friend Dr. Hlingbam and have
been asked to make a statement
thereon. There is little I can say. It
is true that years ago he mentioned
some such theory as that described in
the diary. Whether it contained any
truth or not, who can now say ? If the
diary is a strict record of fact, then it
is apparent that the frog took the only
method at his command to make an
end of one whom he had come to hate
and fear. If the coroner’s theory is
correct and the diary contains the rav-
ings of a madman, then the con-
clusion arrived at by that official is
probably true.

D R. JOHN STORELY, bachelor,
of middle age and very com-
fortable circumstances, had
lately retired from his extensive prac-
tise in London, while still in sound
health and activity; for, as he justly
remarked, what was the good of keep-
ing in harness till you were too old
and infirm to enjoy a well-earned lei-
sure? He still spent most of the year
in town, for he was of sociable habits,
and the country, so he thought, was
a very dreary place for a single man,
who neither hunted nor shot, from
the time when the autumn leaves be-
gin to fall until spring had definitely
established itself again. There were
fogs and darkness, it was true, in Lon-
don, but there were also gas-lamps

and pavements, and a brisk walk
along lighted streets to his elub, where
he would find a rubber of bridge be-
fore dinner was infinitely preferable
to a tramp in dim and dripping coun-
try lanes, and the return again to his
house at Trench, a small country town
at the edge of the Romney Marsh,
where he would spend a solitary eve-
ning. Winter days in the country
closed in early, a servant came round
and drew the curtains, and there yon
were shut up in your box till morning,
whereas in London there were many
friends about, and pleasant dinners at
home or abroad, and amusements of
all sorts ready to hand. As to going
to some winter resort like the Riviera,

the thought was anathema to him.

829

830

WEIRD TALES

People went to the Riviera to get sun-
shine and all they got was blizzards
and possibly pneumonia. London, to
his mind, was the ideal place in which
to spend the winter.

He had therefore arranged his life
on these lines. His delightful little
house down at Trench was in the
hands of a caretaker and his wife
from November till April ; during the
late spring and early autumn Storely
was often down there for a week or a
week-end, and then Mr. and Mrs.
Lamp looked after him, she as cook
with housemaid’s help got in from the
town, and her husband as general man
servant. When summer arrived he
moved his London household down
there for two or three solid months,
while the caretakers took charge of
his house in London. Like a sensible
man, he knew that a motor, now that
he had no rounds of professional vis-
its to pay, was a mere encumbrance in
town, and accordingly he left his car
at Trench throughout the winter.

He had bought this house some three
years ago, just before he retired, and
I had often been down to stay with
him for those week-ends of spring and
autumn, and for longer periods during
the summer. It stood half-way down
one of those steep, cobbled streets for
which Trench is famous, and was the
most adorable little abode. Three
small gables of timber and rough-cast
faced the road, and from the front it
seemed rather shut in, but once inside,
It opened out into a dignified and
spacious privacy. There was a little
paneled hall, with an oak staircase
leading up to the first floor, and on
each side of it a big ceiling-beamed
room with wide open fireplace, and all
these rooms looked out at the back on
to a full acre of unexpected lawn and
garden screened by high red brick
walls from the intrusion of neighbor-
ing eyes. He had done the house up
with due regard for its picturesque
antiquity but with an equal regard
for all possible demands of modem
comfort : electric light was most con-

veniently installed, central heating
supplemented the lb£-brirning open
hearths, and the three big bedrooms
on the first floor had each its own
bathroom. Just as perfect were the
ministrations of the caretaking couple
when Storely went down for the
shorter periods of his sojourn, Lamp
deft and silent-footed, and his wife,
mostly invisible in her kitchen, man-
ifesting her presence there by the
most admirable meals. One saw her
occasionally when she came up after
breakfast to submit to Storely her pro-
posed caterings for the day, a hand-
some, high-colored woman, with a
hard smart air about her, and consid-
erably younger than her husband;
sometimes one met her in the town
with her marketing-basket, and many
smiles and ribands.

I was engaged in the spring of this
year to spend a week at Easter with
my friend. A few days before, I met
him in the cardroom at the club, arid
we cut into a table of bridge together.
After a couple of rubbers we cut out
again, and he beckoned me aside to a
remote comer, where we could talk
privately.

“Upsetting news from Trench yes-
terday morning, ’ ’ he said. ‘ ‘ A couple
of days ago Mrs. Lamp, my care-
taker’s wife — do you remember her?”
“Indeed I do,” said I.

“Well, she disappeared and has
not been seen since. She used often
to take long walks in the country by
herself, when the two were alone there
in the winter, and a couple of days
ago she appears to have started for
one, as was quite usual with her, but
when the evening closed in, and it had
got dark, she had not returned. Lamp
behaved very sensibly and properly:
he went to a house or two in the town
where his wife sometimes visited, but
no one had seen her, and about eleven
o’clock that night, now feeling very
uneasy, he went round to the police
station, and told the inspector that she
was still missing. They telephoned to

JAMES LAMP

831

various villages in the neighborhood,
and to ;tsrhybde stations on the line,
but get no news of her. But beyond
that there was nothing more that
could be done that night. Morning
came, but there was still no sign of
her, and Lamp telephoned to me to
say what had happened. I went down
there after breakfast this morning,
and he disclosed to me a state of
things of which I had no suspicion at
all.”

“A man!” I asked.

“Yes: the foreman in some build-
er’s establishment in Hastings. Lamp
and his wife had had words about him
before, and a fortnight ago in con-
sequence of what he had seen, he told
the man he mustn’t set foot in the
house again, but he had been seen in
Trench on the day that his wife dis-
appeared. All this Lamp told me, but
he had not mentioned it to the police,
since naturally he did not want scan-
dal to get about. But now, when his
wife disappeared, it seemed to me that
it was necessary to let the police know,
in case she had gone to him, and I
sent for the inspector and told him
about it. He made enquiries in Has-
tings, but nothing could be heard
about her. The foreman admitted
that he had been in Trench that day,
but said he had not seen her. He ad-
mitted also, when more closely ques-
tioned, that he and Mrs. Lamp had
agreed that she should leave her hus-
band and come to live with him. They
intended to marry if Lamp would di-
vorce her.”

“And how is Lamp taking it?” I
asked.

“My own opinion is that he will be
much happier without her. He be-
lieves that she has gone to the fore-
man, though why, if she has, they
should try to make a secret about it,
it is impossible to say. But that is
his firm conviction. The two, so Lamp
told me, have had a horrible time of
it this winter and if she was never
heard of again, I don’t think that he
would be sorry. She certainly has

made their life together a wretched
business.”

“But at present there’s no clue as
to what has happened to her?” I
asked.

“Absolutely none. The police sug-
gest loss of memory and sense of
identity, as they always do when any-
one disappears, and they’re keeping
an eye on the man at Hastings. It
was painful to hear Lamp tell the
story of all this, but he did it very
frankly; they’re convinced that he
has told all he knows. Apparently
there is quite sufficient evidence for
him to get his divorce, and if Bhe tries
to come back to him again, he means
to do it.”

Storely got up.

“I thought I would just tell you,”
he said, “for we’ll go down there as
arranged the day after tomorrow.
Lamp says he can get a woman from
Trench to eome in and cook, and like
a sensible fellow he wants to get back
to work again. Par the best thing for
him to do. ”

S o we went down together as had
been settled: Trench looked more
attractive and idyllic than ever in this
sudden burst of spring and warm
April weather. The red-brick houses
climbing up the hill glowed in the mel-
low sunshine, its gardens were gay
with fresh leaf and blossom. In the
reclaimed marshland outside, the haw-
thorn hedges were in bud, innumer-
able lambs bleated and gambolled over
the meadows, and the woods in the
country round about were tapestried
with primrose and anemone, and
curled bracken-shoots. It is a land
of greenness and streams and slow
rivers winding over the levels to the
sea ; on the east side of the small town
the Roop wanders along under the
steep hill, on the west side the bigger
Inglis sweeps widely past the south
of the town and joins the other. Half-
way down this western slope of the
hill was Storely ’s house looking out
on to the narrow cobbled street lined

832

WEIRD TALES

with gabled cottages. At the bottom
of it, not fifty yards from his door
stood granaries and warehouses on
the banks of the river Inglis, up which
at high tide vessels of considerable
tonnage can come to anchor and dis-
charge their freights. The road to
Hastings passes along this bank, then
crosses the river by a bridge at the
side of which are sluice-gates to be
opened or shut to let through or limit
the tide.

We strolled out, across the bridge,
Storely and I, after tea on the day of
our arrival. The tide was low, and
one could see how deeply the flows
and ebbs of the water had scooped
out below the sluice great holes lined
with soft shining mud, while others
deeper yet were still undiscovered.
Prom there we struck into a path lead-
ing across the daisied meadows of the
marsh and bordered by dikes still
brimming with the winter rains and
fringed with the new growth of the
reeds that pricked up through the
dead raffle of last year. The sun was
low to its setting, and now after this
hot day skeins of mist were beginning
to form over the level in the chill of
the evening, shallow at present, but
so opaque that at a little distance they
appeared like sheets of gray flood-
water through which stood up the
trunks of the scattered thorn trees.
Then, turning, we set our faces to-
ward Trench, the topmost houses of
which perched on the hill still glowed
in the sunlight, though now on this
lower land we walked in shadow. As
we crossed again the bridge over the
Inglis the mist had formed very thick
upon the river and like a tide had
crept across the quay-side. The air
was chilly now and we walked more
briskly to the foot of the steep cob-
bled street half-way up which stood
Storely ’s house.

The pavement was narrow, not giv-
ing room for two to walk abreast, and
I fell behind him.

Just here there joined this street on
our right, a narrow footway faced

with houses leading round to the south
face of the hill, and as We passed this
I saw there was a woman standing
there. Her back was toward me, and
she was looking up the street in the
direction of Storely ’s* house. He was
a few paces ahead of me, and as I
came directly opposite her, she turned,
and I felt sure that her face was
familiar to me, though for the moment
I could not recollect who she was.
Then close on the heels of that came
recognition, and I knew that she was
Mrs. Lamp. It was dusk, it was misty,
and I could not see her face very pre-
cisely but I had no doubt of her
identity.

I took a few quick steps forward
and touched Storely on the shoulder.

“Turn round,” I said quietly,
“and have a look at that woman
standing at the corner just below.
See if you recognize her.”

He turned, peering into the dusk.

“But I don’t see any woman at
all, ’ ’ he said. ‘ ‘ There ’s no one there. ”

I turned also, and even as Storely
had said, she was no longer there. I
ran back to the comer where the foot-
path joined the street, and there die
was moving quickly up it away from
us. I beckoned to him, pointing up
the footway.

“But what’s all this about?” he
asked.

“I want you to see her,” said I.
“She’s walking up that path. Be
quick, or she’ll have gone.”

He laughed.

“But I really can’t go in pursuit of
women in the dusk about the streets
of Trench, ” he said. “Who is it that
you want me to identify?”

“I feel sure it’s Mrs. Lamp,” I
answered.

Instantly he joined me.

“What? Mrs. Lamp?” he said ia
a changed voice. “Where? that
woman ahead there? I’ll soon see.”

I waited at the comer while he went
quickly after her. They both passed
out of sight round a bend in the foot-

JAMES LAMP

833

path. In a couple of minutes he re-
turned

“I lost sight of her somehow,” he
said. ‘‘She must have turned into one
of those houses there, though I didn’t
see her do so. Are you sure it was
she?”

‘‘No: that’s why I wanted you to
see her. But if it wasn’t she, it was
somebody most extraordinarily like
her.”

He thought a moment.

“I think we had better not say any-
thing either to Lamp or the police at
present, ” he said. “We ’re not certain
enough, for it’s dusk and after all
you’ve only seen her a few times be-
fore. But if it is she, you may depend
upon it that someone else will see her.
W e shall soon know. ’ ’

amp was in the sitting-room when
we got to the house. It was al-
ready chilly and he had just put a
thatch to the fire of logs and brush-
wood in the hearth, had turned the
lights on, and was now drawing the
curtains. I thought he peered oddly
and intently up and down the street
before he pulled the heavy folds
across the window. Somehow the
sight (or so I believed) of the missing
woman had roused an uneasy feeling
in my mind, but how utterly illogical
and senseless that was ! For if it was
she, all fear of her having come to
febine ill end was over, while if it was
not she, there could be nothing un-
settling in having seen some other
woman who strongly reminded me of
her. But it was odd, it was also re-
grettable that Storely had lost sight
of her like that. If he had only had
one decent look at her, the question
would have been settled.

We spent a quiet evening, playing
a rather serious game of chess after
dinner. About ten o’clock while the
game was still in progress, Lamp
brought in a tray of water and spirits,
and while he was in the room there
came a soft tapping, very light,
against the low diamond-paned win-

dow behind the curtains looking out
on to the street. At the moment he
was pouring some whisky into a glass,
and looking up I saw he had paused
as if listening.

“What was that tapping?” asked
Storely absently as he considered his
move.

“A butterfly, sir,” said Lamp. “I
saw one fluttering about on the win-
dow when I drew the curtains this
evening.”

“Must have been encouraged to
come out after the winter by this hot
sun,”, said Storely. “That’s all we
shall want, Lamp. You can go to bed :
I’ll put out the lights.”

Lamp left us< Storely made his
move, and. as I wgs considering mine
the soft tapping came again. He rose
and went to the window.

“It sounded just as if someone was
tapping at the pane from outside, ’ ’ he
said. 'v--

He parted the curtains and looked
out. There was silence for a moment.

“Just come here,” he said to me.

The light from inside the room as
he drew the curtain had cast a field of
illumination into the street, and out-
side looking into the window was the
figure of a woman. I could see her
face clearly, and it was certainly that
of her whom I had seen that evening
in the dusk as we returned from our
walk. She looked at Storely, then at
me, and then between us into the room
behind as if she was wanting some-
body but not one of us.

“Stop there and watch her,” said
Storely to me, and he went out into
the hall, and I heard him unlock the
front door. The woman turned at
the sound, and moved away from the
window into the darkness. I heard
Storely ’s step on the pavement out-
side, and he beckoned and called to me
through the window,

“She’s gone,” he said. “Did you
see which way she went ? ’ ’

“I think down the hill,” I said, and
I heard his steps following her.

834

WEIRD TALES

I went out after him into the street.
It was an exceedingly dark night, and
misty. I could not Bee more than a
few yards in any direction. The light
in the hall shone out of the open door,
and I saw also that at the top of the
house was a lit window against which
was framed a man’s head. Lamp had
evidently gone up to bed, and hearing
the sound of Storely’s voice in the
street was looking out. In a few min-
utes I heard Storely's returning steps.

‘ * Come in, ” he said. * ‘ I lost her at
once, for the fog is fearfully thick at
the bottom of the hill.”

•He closed the door, and we sat down
again on either side of our chess-board.
Though the game was only half over
he began putting the pieces back in
the box.

“What are we to do?” he said.
“There’s no doubt who it was. But
why is she here, and why does she
come at night and tap atthe window
and then make off again? Did you see
her looking between us as if she
wanted somebody else? And if it’s
Lamp she wants, why doesn’t she
come and ask for him? Anyhow I
must go round to the police station in
the morning to tell them they needn’t
make any further enquiries about her,
as she has certainly been seen. They
aren’t concerned about her connubial
affairs, but only about her disappear-
ance, and now that we’ve seen she’s
alive, there’s nothing more for them
to investigate. Hullo, I’ve scrapped
our game. I’ll play you another if
you like, but it’s late, and I know I
shan’t be able to concentrate. ”

He stared into the smoldering em-
bers of the fire for a moment in silenee,
then wheeled round to me.

“It’s all rather odd,” he said.
“I’ve no doubt it is she, absolutely
none. But why did she come here
at all, if it was only to sheer off again
in that mysterious way? I wonder if
by any chance Lamp has seen her?
Surely he would have told me if he
had.”

Even as he spoke thedooropened
and Lamp came in.

“I beg your pardon, sir,” he said,
“but I had just gone up to bed when
I heard you go out and call from the
street. I came down to see if you
were wanting anything.”

Storely pointed to the window.

“Your wife was standing about
there a few minutes ago, ' ’ he said. ‘ * I
went out to see what she was doing
here.”

I was watching Lamp closely now,
for an idea, wild and fantastic no
doubt, had entered my head. He was
standing by the electric light and I
saw sudden beads of perspiration
break out on his forehead, and his
lips moved as if for speech, but no
words came. But he quickly recov-
ered himself.

“Indeed, sir?” he said. “And may
I ask if you got speech with her?”

“No, she disappeared in the fog be-
fore I could come up with her. But
you can dismiss from your mind now
any fear that some accident has hap-
pened to her. I shall go round to the
police station in the morning, and tell
them they need not continue their
search for her.”

“Thank you very much, sir,” said
Lamp. “But I was never really
afraid of that. I always thought that
she had gone off with that man of
hers. . . . And there’s another thing,
sir, if you wouldn ’t mind my mention-
ing it. I’ll get all her clothes and bits
of things ready packed for her, if it’s
that she’s hanging about for, but I
hope you won’t allow her into the
house again after what she’s done.”

“No, that’s reasonable,” said Store-
ly. “I won’t let her bother you if I
can help it. You haven’t seen her, I
suppose?”

Again I watched Lamp. I saw him
gulp in his throat before he spoke, and
moisten his lips.

“No sir, and I don’t want to,” ha
said.

Storely nodded.

JAMES LAMP

836

, “Tbat’s jali then, Lamp,” he said.
"I’ll go to the police tomorrow.”

* * Thank yon, sir, ’ ’ said Lamp again.
VOf course it’s a great relief to me to
know that she’s come to no bodily
harm.”

“But you said you weren't afraid
of that,” said Storely.

, “I wasn’t, sir,” he said. “But it’s
another thing to be certain of it.”

N ow, Storely, like most people ac-
counted sensible, both distrusts
grid despises all theories that admit the
existence of occult and unexplained
phenomena : the material world is suf-
ficient for him, and the supernatural
is'a subject which he and I, though
our topics are of decently wide range,
always avoid. So I did not say any-
thing to him about the notion which
had entered my head, and which
proved, when I had got to bed, to be
very firmly and uncomfortably estab-
lished there. In a word, I did not
believe that the woman we had both
seen was the living and material pre-
sentment of Lamp’s wife. I believed
that it was some bodiless phantom of
her, and that Lamp also had seen her,
and that he knew it was not her actual
bodily presence we had all beheld.
He had seen, I felt sure, what we had
seen and was terrified of it. His ex-
planation and suggestion were cer-
tainly plausible enough: he would
pack up her clothes and have them
ready, and it was natural that he did
not want her to come inside the house
at all. But it was not the thought of
that which made the sweat to stand
on his forehead, and his throat to gulp,
but something very different. The
thought haunted me; often I half
dropped off to sleep, but as many
times I woke again with the sense that
there was something creeping up to
the house, like the fog that was now
thick outside my window, and seeking
admittance. And often in these wak*
ings, I heard from the room above,
which was Lamp’s, a soft footfall go-
ing backward and forward. It went to

the window and then I heard the creak
of the opening sash ; then the window
was closed again, and the blind drawn
down over it. But toward morning 1
slept more soundly and woke to find
him already in my room, deftly put-
ting out my clothes.

Storely went off to the police sta-
tion directly after breakfast. He had
told Lamp to bring the car round
from the garage which adjoined the
house, for we were to spend the day
on the links. The fog had quite cleared
under a breath of north wind, the
morning was of a crystalline bright-
ness, and while waiting for Storely, I
strolled down the street and out on to
the riverside. In this radiant day of
spring, I almost thought that my un-
easy imaginings were but nightmare
notions, as unreal as a dream. Cer-
tainly they had left the surface of my
conscious mind, and I cared little
whether they had dispersed altogether
or were lurking in the shadows with-
in, so long as they did not trouble me.

When I got hack to the house, the
car was standing at the door, and
casually glancing into it, as I passed,
I thought I saw that huddled up on
the hack seat was sprawling the figure
of a woman. The impression was ab-
solutely momentary, for at once it
resolved itself into a medley of coat
and rug with a patch of oval sunlight
for a face. A good lesson, thought I,
of the tricks the imagination can play,
for clearly this was a piece of that
nightmare stuff which had been
troubling me, and which had no exist-
ence in fact.

T x was dusk when we drew up at the
f door again that evening, after a
salubrious day in the open. A tran-
quil pleasant fatigue possessed me. I
looked forward to my bath and my
dinner and cozy fireside hours before
bed-time. Storely had passed into the
house leaving the front door open, and
I lingered on the threshold a minute,
watching Lamp back the ear into the
garage. As I stood there, I felt some-

836

WEIRD TALES

thing brush by me. and pass invisibly
into the house. Simultaneously I
heard Storely ’s voice from the hall in-
side call out “Hullo, what’s that?”
I came in, shutting the door.

4 ‘ What was it ? ” I asked.

“I don’t know. I was reading my
letters at the table, when something
brushed by me, and I thought it was
you. But there was nothing to be
seen. The door into the sitting-room
swung open and closed again. Where ’s
Lamp ? ’ ’

“He’s putting the car into the ga-
rage,” I said.

“But something did go in there,”
he said. 4 4 Turn on the light. ’ ’

I found the switch and turned it,
and the dusky room leaped into
brightness. But it was quite empty.

“Odd,” he said. 4 4 It must have
been a draft. But it felt more solid
than that.”

“It brushed by me too, as I stood
in the doorway,” I said.

4 4 Of course it was a draft then, ’ ’ he
said. “Strong eddies of air often
come up this narrow street. We’ll
shut them all out. ’ ’

We drew our chairs up near the
fire, for the evening had turned philly.
I had looked forward to this drowsy
hour, with the evening paper to glance
at, and a book to doze over, but in-
stead I found myself eagerly alert.
But I could not give my attention to
my book because something was going
on far more arresting than anything
which the world of books could con-
tain. It was no subjective unrest that
kept me thus on wires ; it was that the
whole of my mind was waiting for
something quite outside myself to de-
velop, and it, whatever it was, was in
the room. It watched, it moved about,
it waited, and now the air was grow-
ing misty and I supposed that the fog
had formed again outside, and was
leaking in. But when I went up to
dress, I looked out from my bedroom
window, and saw that the sky over-
head was full of bright burning stars,
and that the street below, though

dark, was so clear that I could see the
dew which had fallen, and lay on the
cobbles shimmering in the starlight.

During dinner I noticed that Store-
ly as well as I was observing Lamp.
The man was evidently not himself;
ordinarily deft-handed and silent-
footed, he clattered with the dishes,
and when he stood waiting for us to
eat our course, he kept glancing un-
easily round. At the end of dinner,
as he poured out a glass of port for
his master he made some awkward
jerk with his hand, and upset it. An
impatient exclamation was on the tip
of Storely ’s tongue, but he checked it.

“Anything the matter, Lamp?” he
asked, as he mopped up the spilt wine.
“Aren’t you well?”

“No sir. I’m right enough,” he
said. “But it’s queer how the house
is full of fog. The kitchen: why you
can hardly see across it.”

T)resentlt we were back in the sit-
ting-room, where the chess-board
was already set. The woman who
came in to cook did not sleep in the
house, and soon there came the tap-
ping of her steps down the flagged
kitchen passage, and the opening and
shutting of the back door; we heard
Lamp lock and bolt it as soon as she
was gone. During the next hour,
while our game was in progress, he
must have come into the room half m
dozen times ; his hands trembled as
he swept up the hearth, his face was
ashen, and it was evident that he was
in a state of acute nervous tension,
and made every excuse to himself for
coming into the room instead of bid-
ing alone in the kitchen. Finally
Storely told him that we wanted
nothing more that night, and that he
could get to bed. But we heard him
moving about the house overhead, and
when an hour later we finished our
game and went upstairs, he was still
astir in the room above me.

I got to bed and instantly fell
asleep, and woke again with the faint
light of early dawn shining in

JAMBS LAMP

837

through the window knowing that
some, noise had aroused me. There
was the sound of steps coming from
the floor above, and they passed my
door and went on downstairs into the
hall. I got out of bed, turned on my
light, and went to the door and opened
it. But not a yard could I see in front
of me, so dense was the fog that filled
the passage. Yet somebody — were
these not the steps of two people? —
had just passed quickly by as if it was
full daylight. Then suddenly from
below came the sound of voices, and
with a thrill of nameless horror I
heard that one of them was the voice of
a woman. !

“So now you’ve got to come with
me, James Lamp,” it said, “and take
me where you took me before. You’ll
drive me down in the car, as you drove
Hie before, and you’ll come down into
the water where you threw me, and
I’ll be waiting for you there, so close
and loving.”

Then came the other voice. It was
Lamp’s voice, and it rose to a scream
as it spoke.

“No, no,” he cried. “No, not that!
I won’t come, I tell you. Ah, take
your hand off me: it’s hot as fire: I
can’t bear it.”

“Come on then obediently,” said
the other. “ It ’s cool in the water. ’ '

The door of Storely’s room, just op-
posite mine, opened. I heard him click
on the switch in the passage, and very
faintly above our heads in the dense
air there shone out, white but hardly
luminous, the electric light from the
ceiling.

“Ah, you’ve heard it too,” he said,
seeing me. “What is it? What’s hap-
pening? There were voices and a yell.
And there ’s the front door opened and
shut again. Come down. ’ ’

We groped our way along the pas-
sage, but on the stairs it was absolutely
pitch-dark. There was a switch some-

where there but he could not find it,
and he went back to his room to get a
box of matches. With the help of
that light he got hold of the switch,
but even so we had to proceed with
shuffling steps, so dense was the fog.
We crossed the hall, and after fum-
bling at the front door, he threw it
open, and there came in the faint clear
light of the dawn. Even as we stood
on the threshold, the motor emerged
from the garage close by, and I saw
that by the side of Lamp, who drove
it, there sat a woman. It turned and
went swiftly down the street toward!
the river.

“But, good God, what’s happen-
ing?” cried Storely. “That’s Lamp,
But where is he going? And who was
that woman with him? Couldn’t yon
see?”

And in the gray light of morning
we read the answering horror in each,
other’s faces.

T he rest of the story, as it came out
at the inquest held next day at
Trench, is probably known to my read-
ers. Storely’s empty car was found
by a laborer going out to his work,
drawn up on the bridge across the
river Inglis, and the deep pool below
the sluice was dragged. Two bodies
were found there, one of a woman, the
other of James Lamp. The woman’s
body had evidently been in the water
for several days; his only for a few
hours. But her hands were so tightly
locked round the throat of the man,
that it was with difficulty that the two
could be separated. In the woman’s
head was a wound caused by a revolv-
er bullet; it had entered the back of
her skull and was embedded in her
brain. Medical evidence showed that
she was certainly dead before she had
been thrown into the water, and round
her neck was a heavy iron weight. The
body was quite recognizable, being
that of Lamp ’s wife.

A Brief, Strange Story

The Magic-Maker

By AMELIA REYNOLDS LONG

M ORTIMER smiled into his
beard, and stirred the mix-
ture in the crucible. “Soon
he will be here, Pepin,” he said to the
little marmoset perched upon his
shoulder; “this Hildebrandt who
would have me renew his youth. . . .
I knew a Hildebrandt once — back in
the Golden Age when I was young.
He was handsome, and his back had
no hump, as mine has.” His face
hardened, and his voice grew bitter.
“Women demand a comely face and
well-formed person, Pepin.”

The smart rap of a heavy stick upon
oaken panels sent the echoes rocking
about the vaulted ceiling. Mortimer
crossed to the door, and opened it.

A man strode past him into the
room. His dress paraded all the fop-
peries of youth, but his eyes were
pouchy and his jowls were sagging.
He had the unhealthy look of an old
man who had spent Ids life in riotous
living. He cast a curious glance
around him, then flung his hat and
gloves upon a table.

“Is it true that you have discovered
the secret of youth and age, Dr. Mor-
timer?” he demanded abruptly.

“I told you so when I answered
your letter, Lord Hildebrandt,” re-
plied Mortimer.

Hildebrandt jangled a fistful of
gold pieces suggestively. “I suppose
my name is not unknown to you,” he
remarked.

“No, it is not unknown to me.”
Mortimer regarded him from out the
dark caverns that were his eyes. “In
my youth I knew one of that name.”
“What!” Hildebrandt started, and
838

scrutinized him sharply. His eyes
rested upon the misshapen hump be-
tween Mortimer’s shoulders. “You
are not 1”

“But he was not a mighty lord,”
finished Mortimer.

Hildebrandt released his breath in
a sigh of relief. The hunchback ap-
parently had not recognized him; no
more than had he, upon first enter-
ing, recognized the hunchback. A
look of cunning crept across his face.

“Then your other Hildebrandt
could not have given you red gold, as :
I can,” he said with assumed careless-
ness; “as I will give you for — shall
we say a little medicine?”

Mortimer’s face was hidden as he
bent over his alembic. “ I do not want
your gold,” he said. “I am an al-
chemist. All I ask in return for my
elixir of youth is that you tell me why
you want it.”

Hildebrandt laughed coarsely.
“Why does any man want youth?”
he returned. “Women demand a
comely face and well-formed person.”

“Then there is a lady concerned?”
asked Mortimer.

“A beauty,” answered Hildebrandt
enthusiastically, “and too innocent to
realize her own charm. But the old
man does not please her. Ah, Morti-
mer, she should have known me thirty
years ago ! ” He guffawed.

“The Hildebrandt whom I knew
also loved a lady,” said Mortimer.
“But his love was not deep; after he
had married her, he left her to die.”

His visitor fidgeted uneasily. “The
incident seems to have impressed

THE MAGIC-MAKER

839

you.” He strove to make his tone
casual.

"The lady was she whom I was to
marry,” answered Mortimer.

Hildebrandt was silent. He dared
not risk detection by saying more. He
watched Mortimer furtively. In the
red glow from the retort, the alchem-
ist’s features had become a demoniac
mask. The nobleman found himself
shuddering as he looked at it.

wonder, Dr. Mortimer,” he
sg4d at last, speaking to relieve the
oppressiveness of the silence, "why
you do not take this elixir of youth
yourself. Is it true that a doctor can
n$t be cured by his own medicine?”

Mortimer smiled. "I do not take it
because I am wise, ” he said. "Youth
is. too painful, too volcanic. Nine-
tenths of our follies are committed in
o^r. youth.”

*{“And our sins?” asked Hilde-
brandt idly. "When are they com-
mitted?”

"At all times,” Mortimer replied
gravely.

He left the room, and returned with
two flagons of beaten silver.

"In one,” he said, holding them
up, "is the elixir of youth; in the
other, that of old age. Are you sure
you want youth, Lord Hildebrandt?
Are you positive?”

Hildebrandt ’s eyes grew greedy.
"Positive?” he sniggered. "W T ho
would not be positive — for this?”

He took from around his neck a
locket which he opened and handed to
Mortimer. In it was the pictured face
of a young girl ; a face with the inno-
cence of a child and the grace of an
angel. Mortimer had once known
another face like that.

"Remember,” he said, holding
Hildebrandt ’s eyes with his, "it has
been wisely said that a man is most
utterly damned by the fulfilment of
his dearest wish.”

Hildebrandt laughed. "Then let
me be damned,” he returned.

An instant Mortimer hesitated.

Then he closed the locket, and re-
turned it to its owner. Uncorking
one of the flagons, he poured part of
its contents into a crystal beaker. The
fluid scintillated like liquid emeralds.

"A pretty color,” commented Hil-
debrandt; "the color of life.” \

"Two things, and two only, are
green,” said Mortimer; "young grow-
ing things, and festering mold.” He
poured the ichor into the crucible.
There was a sharp report, and a puff
of heavy black smoke arose and
writhed its way. to the brooding
shadow's of the ceiling. Mortimer
chuckled; and the little marmoset,
chattering with fear, sprang from its
master’s shoulder to seek safety on
the ledge over the door.

Mortimer removed the alembic, and
poured the hot liquid into a waiting

chalice " Drink, ” he said, extending

it to Hildebrandt. ,The nobleman
needed no urging.

"And now',” said the alchemist,
"you have only' to sit in your chair
and wait. The elixir works rapidly.
Within an hour it will have altered
you beyond recognition. While you
wait, I will play for you.”

He drew back the heavy curtains at
one side of the room, exposing an or-
gan. Seating himself before it, he
began to play.

The first chords were hauntingly
sweet, like the tender light that fills
the sky at the close of a spring day.
Hildebrandt scarcely heard them, so
excited w as he by the thing that was
about to happen to him. Presently
the music became troubled, and half-
discords stole into its burthen. Grad-
ually it crept into a minor strain of
fear that worked its way into the
small, high-pitched pipes of the in-
strument and w’ent wailing about the
chamber. Hildebrandt shivered un-
comfortably. The long, black shadows
in the comers darted toward and!
away from liim. An unfelt draft
stirred the velvet curtains that still
covered three sides of the room. An
unnatural chill w r as permeating the

840

WEIRD TALES

air. He moved hie chair closer to the
brazier.

Suddenly the music broke into a
wild macabre dance, pierced with
eldritch yells and shrieks. It beat
against the walls with the force of
great wings. It swept through the
chamber, taunting, gibbering, de-
risive. The marmoset screamed with
terror, and pressed its little hands
over its ears. Hildebrandt tried to
rise, but the volume of sound pinned
him to his chair; he tried to cry out,
but it crammed his voice back into his
throat. Then as abruptly as the revel
of horror had begun, it was ended,
giving place to the slow, cumbrous
rhythm of a funeral march.

Hildebrandt ’s heart was beating to
suffocation, and his breath whistled in
his lungs. “Stop, stop!" he cried
frantically. His voice was thin and
cracked, so that he hardly recognized
it. He put out a trembling hand ; and
as his eyes rested upon it, his brain
reeled in horror. It was the bloodless,
emaciated hand of a very old man !

Mortimer rose from the organ.
“Did you think, Hildebrandtj that I
did not know you?” he asked. “I
suspected your identity even before
you arrived. But you did not know
me, or you would not have come, eh?”
He regarded the other through half-
closed, speculative eyes. “I had in-
tended to give you the elixir of
youth,” he went on, “and let you
drown yourself in your own folly. I
would have done it had you not

shown me the locket. But I could not
let you drag down with you another
so like — but let it suffice that I gave
you the other elixir. You are an old,
old man, Hildebrandt. In a few
months you will be dead.”

Hildebrandt began to screech un-
intelligibly for mercy; then his eye
fell on the other flagon. Craftily he
began to edge toward it.

Mortimer read his intention. With
a single gesture he seized the flagon,
wrenched out the cork, and poured its
contents upon the hot coals of the
brazier. There was a blinding flash of
white light, and the flames leaped
high in the air, then collapsed upon
themselves. With a howl of despair,
Hildebrandt clawed at the hot coals.

With the toe of his slipper Morti-
mer spumed back the puling, snivel-
ing wretch at his feet. “You make a
gratifying picture,” he commented.
“After all, this way is as satisfying as
the other would have been.”

“You can't leave me like this,”
whined the dotard. “You couldn’t
leave me to die ! ’ ’

“Old man,” asked Mortimer, “can
you go home alone, or shall I accom-
pany you?”

Hopelessly Hildebrandt got to his
feet, and took up the jaunty hat from
the table. It fell down over his eyes
with an air of ribald buffoonery.
Leaning heavily upon his stick, he
stumbled from the room.

Mortimer smiled silently into his
beard.

The Rats in the Walls'

By H. P. LOVECRAFT

O N JULY 16,1923,1 moved into
Exham Priory after the last
workman had finished his la-
bors. The restoration had been a stu-
pendous task, for little had remained
of the deserted pile but a shell-like
ruin ; yet because it had been the seat
of my ancestors I let no expense deter
me. The place had not been inhab-
ited since the reign of James the
First, when a tragedy of intensely
hideous, though largely unexplained,
nature had struck down the master,
five of his children, and several ser-
vants ; and driven forth under a cloud
of suspicion and terror the third son,
my lineal progenitor and the only
survivor of the abhorred line.

With this sole heir denounced as a
murderer, the estate had reverted to
the crown, nor had the accused man
made any attempt to exculpate him-
self or regain his property. Shaken
by some horror greater than that of
conscience or the law, and expressing
only a frantic wish to exclude the
ancient edifice from his sight and
memory, Walter de la Poer, eleventh
Baron Exham, fled to Virginia and
there founded the family which by the
next century had become known as
Delapore.

Exham Priory had remained unten-

anted, though later allotted to the
estates of the Norrys family and much
studied because of its peculiarly com-
posite architecture; an architecture
involving Gothic towers resting on a
Saxon or Romanesque substructure,
whose foundation in turn was of a
still earlier order or blend of orders
— Roman, and even Druidic or native
Cymric, if legends speak truly. This
foundation was a very singular thing,
being merged on one side with the
solid limestone of the precipice from
whose brink the priory overlooked a
desolate valley three miles west of the
village of Anchester.

Architects and antiquarians loved
to examine this strange relic of for-
gotten centuries, but the country folk
hated it. They had hated it hun-
dreds of years before, when my an-
cestors lived there, and they hated it
now, with the moss and mold of
abandonment on it. I had not been a
day in Anchester before I knew I
came of an accursed house. And this
week workmen have blown up Exham
Priory, and are busy obliterating the
traces of its foundations.

T he bare statistics of my ancestry
I had always known, together
with the fact that my first American
forebear had come to the colonies ua-

841

•From WEIRD TAL®S for March, 1»2*.

842

WEIRD TALES

tier a strange cloud. Of details, how-
ever, I had been kept wholly ignorant
through the policy of reticence al-
ways maintained by the Delapores.
Unlike our planter neighbors, we sel-
dom boasted of crusading ancestors
or other mediaeval and Renaissance
heroes ; nor was any kind of tradition
handed down except what may have
been recorded in the sealed envelope
left before the Civil War by every
squire to his eldest son for posthu-
mous opening. The glories we cher-
ished were those achieved since the
migration ; the glories of a proud and
honorable, if somewhat reserved and
unsocial Virginia line.

During the war our fortunes were
extinguished and our whole existence
changed by the burning of Carfax,
our home on the banks of the James.
My grandfather, advanced in years,
had perished in that, incendiary out-
rage, and with him the envelope that
bound us all to the past. I can recall
that fire today as I saw it then at the
age of seven, with the Federal sol-
diers shouting, the women screaming,
and the negroes howling and praying.
My father was in the army, defending
Richmond, and after many formal-
ities my mother and I were passed
through the lines to join him.

When the war ended we all moved
north, whence my mother had come;
and I grew to manhood, middle age,
and ultimate wealth as a stolid Yan-
kee. Neither my father nor I ever
knew what our hereditary envelope
had contained, and as I merged into
the grayness of Massachusetts business
life I lost all interest in the mysteries
which evidently lurked far back in my
family tree. Ilad I suspected their
nature, how gladly would I have left
Exham Priory to its moss, bats, and
cobwebs !

My father died in 1904, but without
any message to leave to me, or to my
only child, Alfred, a motherless boy
of ten. It was this boy who reversed
the order of family information, _ for
although I could give him only jest-

ing conjectures about the past, he
wrote me of some very interesting an-
cestral legends when the late war took
him to England in 1917 as an aviation
officer. Apparently the Delapores had
a colorful and perhaps sinister his-
tory, for a friend of my son’s, Captain
Edward Norrys of the Royal Flying
Corps, dwelt near the family seat at
Anchester and related some peasant
superstitions which few novelists
could equal for wildness and incred-
ibility. Norrys himself, of course,
did not take them seriously ; but they
amused my son and made good mate-
rial for his letters to me. It was this
legendxy which definitely turned my
attention to my transatlantic heritage,
and made me resolve to purchase and
restore the family seat which Norrys
showed to Alfred in its picturesque
desertion, and offered to get for him
at a surprizingly reasonable figure,
since his own uncle was the present "
owner.

I bought Exham Priory in 1918,
but was almost immediately distracted
from my plans of restoration by the
return of my son as a maimed inva-
lid. During the two years that he
lived I thought of nothing but his
care, having even placed my business
under the direction of partners.

In 1921, as I found myself bereaved
and aimless, a retired manufacturer
no longer young, I resolved to divert
my remaining year's with my new
possession. Visiting Anchester in De-
cember, I was entertained by Captain
Norrys, a plump, amiable young man
who had thought much of my son, and
secured his assistance in gathering
plans and anecdotes to guide in the
coming restoration. Exham Priory
itself I saw without emotion, a jumble
of tottering mediaeval ruins covered
with lichens and honeycombed with
rooks’ nests, perched perilously upon
a precipice, and denuded of floors or
other interior features save the stone
walls of the separate towers.

As I gradually recovered the image
of the edifice as it had been when my

THE RATS IN THE WALLS

843

ancestors left it over three centuries
before, I began to hire workmen for
the reconstruction. In every case I
was forced to go outside the immedi-
ate locality, for the Anchester vil-
lagers had an almost unbelievable fear
and hatred of the place. This senti-
ment was so great that it was some-
times communicated to the outside
laborers, causing numerous deser-
tions; whilst its scope appeared to
include both the priory and its
ancient family.

My son had told me that he was
somewhat avoided during his visits
because he was a de la Poer, and I now
found myself subtly ostracized for a
like reason until I convinced the
peasants how little I knew of my heri-
tage. Even then they sullenly dis-
liked me, so that I had to collect most
of the village traditions through the
mediations of Norrys. What the
people could not forgive, perhaps, was
that I had come to restore a symbol
so abhorrent to them; for, rationally
or not, they viewed Exham Priory as
nothing less than a haunt of fiends
and werewolves.

T>iecing together the tales which
-*• Norrys collected for me, and sup-
plementing them with the accounts of
several savants who had studied the
ruins, I deduced that Exham Priory
stood on the site of a prehistoric tem-
ple ; a Druidical or ante-Druidical
thing which must have been contem-
porary with Stonehenge. That inde-
scribable rites had been celebrated
there, few doubted, and there were
unpleasant tales of the transference of
these rites into the Cybele-worship
which the Romans had introduced.

Inscriptions still visible in the sub-
cellar bore such unmistakable letters
as “DIY . . . OPS . . . MAGNA.
MAT ...” sign of the Magna Mater
whose dark worship was once vainly
forbidden to Roman citizens. An-
chester had been the camp of the third
Augustan legion, as many remains at-
test, and it was said that the temple

of Cybele was splendid and thronged
with worshippers who performed
nameless ceremonies at the bidding of
a Phrygian priest. Tales added that
the fall of the old religion did not end
the orgies at the temple, but that the
priests lived on in the new faith with-
out real change. Likewise was it said
that the rites did not vanish with the
Roman power, and that certain among
the Saxons added to what remained of
the temple, and gave it the essential
outline it subsequently preserved,
making it the center of a cult feared
throughout the heptarchy. About
1000 A. D. the place is mentioned in
a chronicle as being a substantial
stone priory housing a strange and
powerful monastic order and sur-
rounded by extensive gardens which
needed no walls to exclude a fright-
ened populace. It was never destroyed
by the Danes, though after the Nor-
man Conquest it must have declined
tremendously ; since there was no im-
pediment when Henry the Third
granted the site to my ancestor, Gil-
bert de la Poer, First Baron Exham,
in 1261.

Of my family before this date there
is no evil report, but something
strange must have happened then. In
one chronicle there is a reference to a
de la Poer as “cursed of God” in
1307, whilst village legendry had
nothing but evil and frantic fear to
tell of the castle that went up on the
foundations of the old temple and
priory. The fireside tales were of the
most grisly description, all the ghast-
lier because of their frightened reti-
cence and cloudy evasiveness. They
represented my ancestors as a race of
hereditary daemons beside whom
Gilles de Retz and the Marquis de
Sade would seem the veriest tyros, and
hinted whisperingly at their responsi-
bility for the occasional disappear-
ances of villagers through several gen-
erations.

The worst characters, apparently,
were the barons and their direct
heirs: at least, most was whispered

844

WEIRD TALES

about these. If of healthier inclina-
tions, it was said, an heir would early
and mysteriously die to make way for
another more typical scion. There
seemed to be an inner cult in the fam-
ily, presided over by the head of tho
house, and sometimes closed except
to a few members. Temperament
rather than ancestry was evidently
the basis of this cult, for it was en-
tered by several who married into the
family. Lady Margaret Trevor from
Cornwall, wife of Godfrey, the second
son of the fifth baron, became a favor-
ite bane of children all over the coun-
tryside, and the demon heroine of a
particularly horrible old ballad not
yet extinct near the Welsh border.
Preserved in balladry, too, though not
illustrating the same point, is the
hideous tale of Lady Mary de la Poer,
who shortly after her marriage to the
Earl of Shrewsfield was killed by him
and his mother, both of the slayers
being absolved and blessed by the
priest to whom they confessed what
they dared not repeat to the world.

These myths and ballads, typical as
they were of crude superstition, re-
pelled me greatly? Their persistence,
and their application to so long a
line of my ancestors, were especially
annoying; whilst the imputations of
monstrous habits proved unpleasant-
ly reminiscent of the one known scan-
dal of my immediate forebears — the
case of my cousin, young Randolph
Delapore of Carfax, who went among
the negroes and became a voodoo
priest after he returned from the Mex-
ican War.

I was much les^ disturbed by the
vaguer tales of wails and howlings in
the barren, windswept valley beneath
the limestone cliff; of the graveyard
stenches after the spring rains ; of the
floundering, sciuealing white thing on
which Sir John Clave’s horse had
trod one night in a lonely field; and
of the servant who had gone mad at
what he saw in the priory in the full
light of day. These things were hack-
neyed spectral lore, and I was at that

time a pronounced skeptic. The ac-
counts of vanished peasants were less
to be dismissed, though not especially
significant in view of medieval cus-
tom. Prying curiosity meant death,
and more than one severed head had
been publicly shown on the bastions —
now effaced — around Exham Priory.

A few of the tales were exceedingly
picturesque, and made me wish I had
learnt more of comparative mythol-
ogy in my youth. There was, for
instance, the belief that a legion of
bat-winged devils kept witches’ sab-
bath each night at the priory — a
legion whose sustenance might explain
the disproportionate abundance ■ of
coarse vegetables harvested in the
vast gardens. And, most vivid of all,
there was the dramatic epic of the
rats — the scampering army of obscene
vermin which had burst forth from
the castle three months after the trag-
edy that doomed it to desertion — the
lean, filthy, ravenous army which had
swept all before it and devoured fowl,
cats, dogs, sheep, and even two hapless
human beings before its fury was
spent. Around that unforgettable
rodent army a whole separate cycle of
myths revolves, for it scattered among
the village homes and brought curses
and horrors in its train.

Such was the lore that assailed me
as I pushed to completion, with an
elderly obstinacy, the work of restor-
ing my ancestral home. It must not
be imagined for a moment that these
tales formed my principal psycho-
logical environment. On the other
hand, I was constantly praised and
encouraged by Captain Norrys and
the antiquarians who surrounded and
aided me. When the task was done,
over two years after its commence-
ment, I viewed the great rooms, wains-
cotted walls, vaulted ceilings, mul-
lioned windows, and broad staircases
with a pride which fully compensated
for the prodigious expense of the res-
toration.

Every attribute of the Middle Ages
was cunningly reproduced, and the

THE RATS IN THE WALLS

845

new parts blended perfectly with the
original walls and foundations. The
seat of my fathers was complete, and
I looked forward to redeeming at last
the local fame of the line which ended
in me. I would reside here perma-
nently, and prove that a de la Poor
(for I had adopted again the original
spelling of the name) need not be a
fiend. My comfort was perhaps aug-
mented by the fact that, although
Exham Priory was medievally fitted,
its interior was in truth wholly new
and free from old vermin and old
ghosts alike.

A s i have said, I moved in on July
16, 1923. My household consisted
of seven servants and nine cats, of
which latter species I am particularly
fond. My eldest cat, “Nigger-Man,”
was seven years old and had come
-with me from my home in Bolton,
Massachusetts; the others I had ac-
cumulated whilst living with Captain
Norms’ family during the restoration
of the priory.

For five days our routine proceeded
with the utmost placidity, my time
being spent mostly in the codification
of old family data. I had now ob-
tained some very circumstantial ac-
counts of the final tragedy and flight
of Walter de la Poer, which I con-
ceived to be the probable contents of
the hereditary paper lost, in the fire at
Carfax. It appeared that my an-
cestor Avas accused with much reason
of having killed all the other mem-
bers of his household, except four
servant confederates, in their sleep,
about two weeks after a shocking dis-
covery which changed his whole
demeanor, but which, except by im-
plication, he disclosed to no one save
perhaps the servants who assisted him
and afterward fled beyond reach.

This deliberate slaughter, which in-
cluded a father, three brothers, and
two sisters, was largely condoned by
the villagers, and so slackly treated
by the law that its perpetrator escaped
honored, unharmed, and undisguised

to Virginia; the general whispered
sentiment being that he had purged
the land of an immemorial curse.
What discovery had prompted an act
so terrible, I could scarcely even con-
jecture. Walter de la Poer must have
lmown for years the sinister tales
about his family, so that this material
could have given him no fresh im-
pulse. Had he, then, witnessed some
appalling ancient rite, or stumbled
upon some frightful and revealing
symbol in the priory or its vicinity?
He was reputed to have been a shy,
gentle youth in England. In Vir-
ginia he seemed not so much hard or
bitter as harassed and apprehensive.
He was spoken of in the diary of
another gentleman adventurer, Fran-
cis Harley of Bellview, as a man of
unexampled justice, honor and del-
icacy.

On July 22 occurred the first inci-
dent which, though lightly dismissed
at the time, takes on a preternatural
significance in relation to later events.
It was so simple as to be almost neg-
ligible, and could not possibly have
been noticed under the circumstances ;
for it must be recalled that since I
Avas in a building practically fresh
and new except for the Avails, and sur-
rounded by a well-balanced staff of
servitors, apprehension Avould have
been absurd -despite the locality.

What I afterward remembered is
merely this — that my old black cat,
whose moods I knoAv so Avell, was un-
doubtedly alert and anxious to an
extent Avholly out of keeping Avith his
natural character. He roved from
room to room, restless and disturbed,
and sniffed constantly about the walls
which formed part of the old Gothic
structure. I realize hoAv trite this
sounds — like the inevitable dog in the
ghost story, which ahvays groAvls be-
fore his master sees the sheeted figure
— yet I can not consistently suppress
it.

The following day a servant com-
plained of restlessness among all the
cats in the house. He came to me in

WEIRD TALES

S4<;

my study, a lofty west room on the
second story, with groined arches,
black oak paneling, and a triple
Gothic window overlooking the lime-
stone cliff and desolate valley; and
even as he spoke I saw the jetty form
of Nigger-Man creeping along the
west wall and scratching at the new
panels which overlaid the ancient,
stone.

I told the man that there must be
some singular odor or emanation from
the old stonework, imp"' ieptible to
human senses, but affecting the del-
icate organs of cats even through the
new woodwork. This I truly believed,
and when the fellow suggested the
presence of mice or rats, I mentioned
that there had been no rats there for
three hundred years, and that even
the field mice of the surrounding
country' could hardly be found in
these high walls, where they had never
been known to stray. That afternoon
I called on Captain Norrys, and he as-
sured me that it would be quite in-
credible for field mice to infest the
priory in such a sudden and unprece-
dented fashion.

That night, dispensing as usual
with a valet, I retired in the west
tower chamber which I had chosen as
my own, reached from the study by' a
stone staircase and short gallery — the
former partly ancient, the latter en-
tirely restored. This room was circu-
lar, very high, and without wainscot-
ting, being hung with arras which I
had myself chosen in London.

Seeing that Nigger-Man was with
me, I shut the heavy Gothic door and
retired by the light of the electric
bulbs which so cleverly' counterfeited
candles, finally switching off the light
and sinking on the carved and can-
opied four-poster, with the venerable
cat in his accustomed place across my
feet. I did not draw the curtains, but
gazed out at the narrow north win-
dow which I faced. There was a sus-
picion of aurora in the sky, and the
delicate traceries of the window were
pleasantly silhouetted.

At some time I must have fallen
quietly asleep, for I recall a distinct
sense of leaving strange dreams when
the cat started violently from his plac-
id position. I saw him in the faint
auroral glow, head strained forward,
forefeet on my ankles, and hind feet
stretched behind. He was looking in-
tensely at a point on the wall some-
what west of the window, a point
which to my eye had nothing to mark
it, but toward which all my' attention
was now directed.

And as I watched, I know that Nig-
ger-Man was not vainly excited.
Whether the arras actually moved I
can not say. I think it did, very
slightly. But what I can swear to is
that behind it I heard a low, distinct
scurrying as of rats or mice. In a mo-
ment the cat had jumped bodily on
the screening tapestry, bringing the
affected section to the floor with his
weight, and exposing a damp, ancient
wall of stone ; patched here and there
by the restorers, and devoid of any
trace of rodent prowlers.

Nigger-Man raced up and down the
floor by this part of the wall, clawing
the fallen arras and seemingly trying
at times to insert a paw between the
wall and the oaken floor. He found
nothing, and after a time returned
warily to his place across my feet. I
had not moved, but T did not sleep
again that night.

In the morning I questioned all the
servants, and found that none of them
had noticed anything unusual save
that the cook remembered the actions
of a eat which had rested on her win-
dow-sill. This cat had howled at some
unknown hour of the night, awaking
the cook in time for her to see him
dart purposefully out of the open door
down the stairs. I drowsed away' the
noontime, and in the afternoon called
again on Captain Norrys, who became
exceedingly interested in what I told
him. The odd incidents — so slight
yet so curious — appealed to his sense
of the picturesque, and elicited from
him a number of reminiscences of

THE RATS IN THE WALLS

local ghostly lore. We were genuinely
perplexed at the presence of rats, and
Norrys lent me some traps and paris-
green, which I had the servants place
in strategic localities when I returned.

I retired early, being very sleepy,
but was harassed by dreams of the
most horrible sort. I seemed to be
looking down from an immense height
upon a twilit grotto, knee-deep with
filth, where a white-bearded daemon
swineherd drove about with his staff a
flock of fungous, flabby beasts whose
appearance filled me with unutterable
loathing. Then, as the swineherd
paused and nodded over his task, a
mighty swarm of rats rained down on
the stinking abyss and fell to devour-
ing beasts and man alike.

From this terrific vision I was
abruptly awaked by the motions of
Nigger-Man, who had been sleeping as
usual across my feet. This time I did
not have to question the source of his
snarls and hisses, and of the fear
which made him sink his claws into
my ankle, unconscious of their effect ;
for on every side of the chamber the
walls were alive with nauseous sound
— the verminous slithering of raven-
ous, gigantic rats. There was now
no aurora to show the state of the
arras — the fallen section of which had
been replaced — but I was not too
frightened to switch on the light.

As the bulbs leapt into radiance I
saw a hideous shaking all over the tap-
estry, causing the somewhat peculiar
designs to execute a singular dance of
death. This motion disappeared al-
most at once, and the sound with it.
Springing out of bed, I poked at the
arras with the long handle of a warm-
ing-pan that rested near, and lifted
one section to see what lay beneath.
There was nothing but the patched
stone wall, and even the cat had lost
his tense realization of abnormal pres-
ences. When I examined the circular
trap tliat had been placed in the room,
I found all of the openings sprung,

B41)

though no trace remained of whaf had
been caught and had escaped.

Further sleep was out of the ques-
tion, so, lighting a candle, I opened the
door and went out in the gallery to-
ward the stairs to my study, Nigger-
Man following at my heels. Before
we had reached the stone steps, how-
ever, the cat darted ahead of me and
vanished down the ancient flight. As
I descended the stairs myself, I be-
came suddenly aware of sounds in the
great room below ; sounds of a nature
which could not be mistaken.

The oak-paneled walls were alive
with rats, scampering and milling,
whilst Nigger-Man was racing about
with the fury of a baffled hunter.
Reaching the bottom, I switched on
the light, which did not this time
cause the noise to subside. The rats
continued their riot, stampeding with
such force and distinctness that I
could finally assign to their motions
a definite direction. These creatures,
in numbers apparently inexhaustible,
were engaged in one stupendous mi-
gration from inconceivable heights to
some depth conceivably, or inconceiv-
ably, below.

I now heard steps in the corridor,
and in another moment two servants
pushed open the massive door. They
were searching the house for some un-
known source of disturbance which
had thrown all the cats into a snarling
panic and caused them to plunge pre-
cipitately down several flights of
stairs and squat, yowling, before the
closed door to the sub-cellar. I asked
them if they had heard the rats, but
they replied in the negative. And
when I turned to call their attention
to the sounds in the panels, I realized
that the noise had ceased.

With the two men I went down to
the door of the sub-cellar, but found
the cats already dispersed. Later, I
resolved I would explore the crypt be-
low; but for the present I merely
made a round of the traps. All were
sprung, yet all were tenantless. Satis-
fying myself that no one had heard

848

WEIRD TALES

the rats save the felines and me, I sat
in my study till morning, thinking
profoundly, and recalling every scrap
»f legend I had unearthed concerning
the building I inhabited.

I slept some in the forenoon, leaning
back in the one comfortable library
chair which my mediaeval plan of fur-
nishing could not banish. Later I
telephoned to Captain Norrys, who
came over and helped me explore the
sub-cellar.

. Absolutely nothing untoward was
found, although we could not repress
a thrill at the knowledge that this
vault was built by Roman hands.
Every low arch and massive pillar was
Roman — not the debased Romanesque
of the bungling Saxons, but the severe
and harmonious classicism of the age
of the Ctesars ; indeed, the walls
abounded with inscriptions familiar
to the antiquarians who had repeated-
ly explored the place — things like “P.
GETAE. PROP . . . TEMP . . .
DONA . . .” and “L. PRAEC . . .
VS . . . PONTIFI . . . ATYS . . .”

The reference to Atys made me shiv-
er, for I had read Catullus and knew
something of the hideous rites of the
Eastern god, whose worship was so
mixed with that of Cybele. Norrys
and I, by the light of lanterns, tried
to interpret the odd and nearly ef-
faced designs on certain irregularly
rectangular blocks of stone generally
held to be altars, but could make
nothing of them. We remembered
that one pattern, a sort of rayed sun,
was held by students to imply a non-
Roman origin, suggesting that these
altars had merely been adopted by the
Roman priests from some older and
perhaps aboriginal temple on the same
site. On one of these blocks were
some brown stains which made me
wonder. The largest, in the center of
the room, had certain features on the
upper surface which indicated its con-
nection with fire — probably burnt
offerings.

Such were the sights in that crypt

before whose door the cats had
howled, and where Norrys and I now
determined to pass the night. Couches
were brought down by the servants,
who were told not to mind any noc- .
turnal actions of the cats, and Nigger-
Man was admitted as much for help
as for companionship. We decided to
keep the great oak door — a modern
reproduction with slits for ventilation
— tightly closed; and, with this at-
tended to, we retired with lanterns
still burning to await whatever might
occur.

The vault was very deep in the
foundations of the priory, and un-
doubtedly far down on the face of the
beetling limestone cliff overlooking
the waste valley. That it had been the
goal of the scuffling and unexplain-
able rats I could not doubt, though
why, I could not tell. As we lay there
expectantly, I found my vigil occa-
sionally mixed with half-formed
dreams from which the uneasy mo-
tions of the cat across my feet would
rouse me.

These dreams were not wholesome,
but horribly like the one I had had
the night before. I saw again the
twilit grotto, and the swineherd with
his unmentionable fungous beasts wal-
lowing in filth, and as I looked at
these things they seemed nearer and
more distinct — so distinct that I could
almost observe their features. Then
I did observe the flabby features of
one of them — and awaked with such a
scream that Nigger-Man started up,
whilst Captain Norrys, who had not
slept, laughed considerably. Norrys
might have laughed more — or perhaps
less — had he known what, it was that
made me scream. But I did not re-
member myself till later. Ultimate
horror often paralyzes memory in a
merciful way.

Norrys waked me when the phe-
nomena began. Out of the same
frightful dream I was called by his
gentle shaking and his urging to lis-
ten to the cats. Indeed, there was
much to listen to, for beyond the

THE RATS IN THE WALLS

840

closed door at the head of the stone
steps was a veritable nightmare of
feline yelling and clawing, whilst
Nigger-Man, unmindful of his kindred
outside, was running excitedly around
the bare stone walls, in which I heard
the same babel of scurrying rats that
had troubled me the night before.

An acute terror now rose within
me, for here were anomalies which
nothing normal could well explain.
These rats, if not the creatures of a
madness which I shared with the cats
alone, must be burrowing and sliding
in Roman walls I had thought to be of
solid limestone blocks . . . unless per-
haps the action of water through more
than seventeen centuries had eaten
winding tunnels which rodent bodies
had worn clear and ample. . . . But
even so, the spectral horror was no
less; for if these were living vermin
why did not Norrys hear their dis-
gusting commotion? Why did he
urge me to watch Nigger-Man and
listen to the cats outside, and why did
he guess wildly and vaguely at what
could have aroused them?

By the time I had managed to tell
him, as rationally as I could, what I
thought I was hearing, my ears gave
me the last fading impression of the
scurrying; which had retreated still
downward, far underneath this deep-
est of sub-cellars, till it seemed as if
the whole cliff below were riddled with
questing rats. Norrys was not as
skeptical as I had anticipated, but in-
stead seemed profoundly moved. He
motioned to me to notice that the cats
at the door had ceased their clamor,
as if giving up the rats for lost;
whilst Nigger-Man had a burst of re-
newed restlessness, and was clawing
frantically around the bottom of the
large stone altar in the center of the
room, which was nearer Norrys ’ couch
than mine.

My fear of the unknown was at this
point very great. Something astound-
ing had occurred, and I saw that
Captain Norrys, a younger, stouter,
and presumably more naturally mate-

rialistic man, was affected fully as
much as myself — perhaps because ©f
his lifelong and intimate familiarity
with local legend. We could for the
moment do nothing but watch the old
black cat as he pawed with decreasing
fervor at the base of the altar, occa-
sionally looking up and mewing to me
in that persuasive manner which he
used when he wished me to perform
some favor for him.

Norrys now took a lantern close to
the altar and examined the place
where Nigger-Man was pawing ; silent-
ly kneeling and scraping away the
lichens of centuries which joined the
massive pre-Roman block to the tes-
selated floor. He did not find any-
thing, and was about to abandon Ms
efforts when I noticed a trivial cir-
cumstance which made me shudder,
even though it implied nothing more
than I had already imagined.

I told him of it, and we both looked
at its almost imperceptible manifesta-
tion with the fixedness of fascinated
discovery and acknowledgment. It
was only this — that the flame of the
lantern set down near the altar was
slightly but certainly flickering from
a draft of air which it had not
before received, and which came in-
dubitably from the crevices between
floor and altar where Norrys was
scraping away the lichens.

We spent the rest of the night in
the brilliantly lighted study, nerv-
ously discussing what we should do
next. The discovery that some vault
deeper than the deepest known ma-
sonry of the Romans underlay this
accursed pile ; some vault unsuspected
by the curious antiquarians of three
centuries; would have been sufficient
to excite us without any background
of the sinister. As it was, the fas-
cination became twofold ; and we
paused in doubt whether to abandon
our search and quit the priory for
ever in superstitious caution, or te
gratify our sense of adventure and
brave whatever horrors might await
us in the unknown depths.

850

WEIRD TALES

By morning we had compromised,
and decided to go to London to gather
a group of archeologists and scientific
men fit to cope with the mystery. It
should be mentioned that before leav-
ing the sub-cellar we had vainly tried
to move the central altar which we
now recognized as the gate to a new
pit of nameless fear. What secret
would open the gate, wiser men than
we would have to find.

During many days in London Cap-
tain Norrys and I presented our facts,
conjectures, and legendry anecdotes
to five eminent authorities, all men
who could be trusted to respect any
family disclosures which future ex-
plorations might develop. We found
most of them little disposed to scoff,
but, instead, intensely interested and
sincerely sympathetic. It is hardly
necessary to name them all, but I may
say that they included Sir William
Brinton, whose excavations in the
Troad excited most of the world in
their day. As we all took the train
for Anchester I felt myself poised on
the brink of frightful revelations, a
sensation symbolized by the air of
mourning among the many Americans
at the unexpected death of the Pres-
ident on the other side of the world.

/~\n the evening of August 7th we
^ reached Exham Priory, where the
servants assured me that nothing un-
usual had occurred. The cats, even
old Nigger-Man, had been perfectly
placid; and not a trap in the house
had been sprung. We were to begin
exploring on the following day, await-
ing which I assigned well-appointed
rooms to all my guests.

I myself retired in my own tower
chamber, with Nigger-Man across my
feet. Sleep came quickly, but hid-
eous dreams assailed me. There was a
vision of a Roman feast like that of
Trimalchio, with a horror in a covered
platter. Then came that damnable,
recurrent thing about the swineherd
and his filthy drove in the twilit grot-
to. Yet when I awoke it was full

daylight, with normal sounds in the
house below. The rats, living or spec-
tral, had not troubled me; and Nig-
ger-Man was still quietly asleep. On
going down, I found that the same
tranquillity had prevailed elsewhere;
a condition which one of the assembled
savants — a fellow named Thornton,
devoted to the psychic — rather ab-
surdly laid to the fact that I had now
been shown the thing which certain
forces had wished to show me.

All was now ready, and at eleven
a. m. our entire group of seven men,
bearing powerful electric search-
lights and implements of excavation,
went down to the sub-cellar and bolted
the door behind us. Nigger-Man was
with us, for the investigators found
no occasion to despise his excitability,
and were indeed anxious that he be
present in case of obscure rodent man-
ifestations. We noted the Roman in-
scriptions and unknown altar designs
only briefly, for three of the savants
had already seen them, and all knew
their characteristics. Prime attention
was paid to the momentous central
altar, and within an hour Sir William
Brinton had caused it to tilt back-
ward, balanced by some unknown
species of counterweight.

There now lay revealed such a hor-
ror as would have overwhelmed us
had we not been prepared. Through
a nearly square opening in the tiled
floor, sprawling on a flight of stone
steps so prodigiously worn that it was
little more than an inclined plane at
the center, was a ghastly array of hu-
man or semi-human bones. Those
which retained their collocation as
skeletons showed attitudes of panic
fear, and over all were the marks of
rodent gnawing. The skulls denoted
nothing short of utter idiocy, cretin-
ism, or primitive semi-apedom.

Above the hellishly littered steps
arched a descending passage seeming-
ly chiseled from the solid rock, and
conducting a current of air. This cur-
rent was not a sudden and noxious
rush as from a closed vault, but a

THE RATS IN THE WALLS

851

cool breeze with something of fresh-
ness in it. We did not pause long,
but shiveringly began to clear a pas-
sage down the steps. It was then that
Sir William, examining the hewn
walls, made the odd observation that
the passage, according to the direction
of the strokes, must have been chiseled
from, beneath.

I must be very deliberate now, and
choose my words.

After plowing down a few steps
amidst the gnawed bones we saw that
there was light ahead ; not any mystic
■ phosphorescence, but a filtered day-
light which could not come except
from unknown fissures in the cliff that
overlooked the waste valley. That
such fissures had escaped notice from
outside was hardly remarkable, for
not only is the valley wholly unin-
habited, but the cliff is so high and
^eetling that only an aeronaut could
study its face in detail. A few steps
ithbre, and our breaths were literally
snatched from us by what we saw ; so
literally that Thornton, the psychic
investigator, actually fainted in the
arms of the dazed man who stood be-
hind him. Norrys, his plump face ut-
terly white and flabby, simply cried
out inarticulately; whilst I think that
what I did was to gasp or hiss, and
©Over my eyes.

*' The man behind me — the only one
of the party older than I — croaked
the hackneyed “My God!” in the
most cracked voice I ever heard. Of
seven cultivated men, only Sir Wil-
liam Brinton retained his composure,
a thing the more to his credit because
he led the party and must have seen
the sight first.

It was a twilit grotto of enormous
height, stretching away farther than
any eye could see; a subterraneous
world of limitless mystery and hor-
rible suggestion. There were build-
ings and other architectural remains
— in one terrified glance I saw a
weird pattern of tumuli, a savage cir-
cle of monoliths, a low-domed Roman

ruin, a sprawling Saxon pile, and an
early English edifice of wood — but all
these were dwarfed by the ghoulish
spectacle presented by the general
surface of the ground. For yards
about the steps extended an insane
tangle of human bones, or bones at
least as human as those on the steps.
Like a foamy sea they stretched, some
fallen apart, but others wholly or
partly articulated as skeletons ; these
latter invariably in postures of dae-
moniac frenzy, either fighting off
some menace or clutching other forms
with cannibal intent.

When Dr. Trask, the anthropolo-
gist, stooped to classify the skulls, he
found a degraded mixture which ut-
terly baffled him. They were mostly
lower than the Piltdown man in the
scale of evolution, but in every case
definitely human. Many were of
higher grade, and a very few were
the skulls of supremely and sensitive-
ly developed types. All the bones
were gnawed, mostly by rats, but
somewhat by others of the half-human
drove. Mixed with them were many
tiny bones of rats — fallen members of
the lethal army which closed the an-
cient epic.

I wonder that any man among us
lived and kept his sanity through
that hideous day of discovery. Not
Hoffmann or Huysmans could con-
ceive a scene more wildly incredible,
more frenetically repellent, or more
Gothically grotesque than the twilit
grotto through which we seven stag-
gered; each stumbling on revelation
after revelation, and trying to keep
for the nonce from thinking of the
events which must have taken place
there three hundred, or a thousand,
or two thousand, or ten thousand
years ago. It was the antechamber of
hell, and poor Thornton fainted again
when Trask told him that some of the
skeleton things must have descended
as quadrupeds through the last twen-
ty or more generations.

Horror piled on horror as we began
to interpret the architectural remains.

852

WEIRD TALES

The quadruped things — with their
occasional recruits from the biped
class — had been kept in stone pens,
out of which they must have broken
in their last delirium of hunger or
rat-fever. There had been great herds
of them, evidently fattened on the
coarse vegetables whose remains could
be found as a sort of poisonous ensil-
age at the bottom of huge stone bins
older than Rome. I knew now why
my ancestors had had such excessive
gardens — would to heaven I could
forget! The purpose of the herds I
did not have to ask.

Sir William, standing with his
searchlight in the Roman ruin, trans-
lated aloud the most shocking ritual I
have ever known ; and told of the diet
of the antediluvian cult which the
priests of Cybele found and mingled
with their own. Norrys, used as he
was to the trenches, could not walk
straight when he came out of the Eng-
lish building. It was a butcher shop
and kitchen — he had expected that —
but it was too much to see familiar
English implements in such a place,
and to read familiar English graffiti
there, some as recent as 1610. I could
not go in that building — that building
whose daemon activities were stopped
only by the dagger of my ancestor
Walter de la Poer.

What I did venture to enter was
the low Saxon building, whose oaken
door had fallen, and there I found a
terrible row of ten stone cells with
rusty bars. Three had tenants, all
skeletons of high grade, and on the
bony forefinger of one I found a seal
ring with my own coat-of-arms. Sir
William found a vault with far older
cells below the Roman chapel, but
these cells were empty. Below them
was a low crypt with cases of form-
ally arranged bones, some of them
bearing terrible parallel inscriptions
carved in Latin, Greek and the tongue
of Phrygia.

M eanwhile, Dr. Trask had opened
one of the prehistoric tumuli,
and brought to light skulls which
were slightly more human than a
gorilla’s and which bore indescribable
ideographic carvings. Through all
this horror my cat stalked unper-
turbed. Once I saw him monstrously
perched atop a mountain of bones, and
wondered at the secret that might lie
behind his yellow eyes.

Having grasped to some slight de-
gree the frightful revelations of this
twilight area — an area so hideously
foreshadowed by my recurrent dream
— we turned to that apparently
boundless depth of midnight cavern
where no ray of light from the cliff
could penetrate. We shall never
know what sightless Stygian worlds
yawn beyond the little distance we
went, for it was decided that such
secrets are not good for mankind.
But there was plenty to engross us
close at hand, for we had not gone far
before the searchlights showed that
accursed infinity of pits in which the
rats had feasted, and whose sudden
lack of replenishment had driven the
ravenous rodent army first to turn on
the living herds of starving things,
and then to burst forth from the
priory in that historic orgy of devas-
tation which the peasants will never
forget.

God! those carrion black pits of
sawed, picked bones and opened
skulls! Those nightmare chasms
choked with the pithecanthropoid,
Celtic, Roman, and English bones of
countless unhallowed centuries ! Some
of them were full, and none can say
how deep they had once been. Others
were still bottomless to our search-
lights, and peopled by unnamable
fancies. What, I thought, of the hap-
less rats that stumbled into such
traps amidst the blackness of their
quests in this grisly Tartarus ?

Onee my foot slipped near a hor-
ribly yawning brink, and I had a

THE RATS IN THE WALLS

853

moment of ecstatic fear. I must have
been musing a long time, for I could
not see any of the party but the
plump Captain Norrys. Then there
came a sound from that inky, bound-
less, farther distance that I thought I
knew; and I saw my old black cat
dart past me like a winged Egyptian
god, straight into the illimitable gulf
of the unknown. But I was not far
behind, for there was no doubt after
another second. It was the eldritch
scurrying of those fiend-bom rats,
always questing for new horrors, and
determined to lead me on even unto
those grinning caverns of earth ’s cen-
ter where Nyarlathotep, the mad
faceless god, howls blindly in the
darkness to the piping of two amor-
phous idiot flute-players.

My searchlight expired, but still I
ran. I heard voices, and yowls, and
echoes, but above all there gently rose
that impious, insidious scurrying ;
gently rising, rising, as a stiff bloated
corpse gently rises above an oily
.river that flows under endless onyx
bridges to a black, putrid sea.

Something bumped into me — some-
thing soft and plump. It must have
been the rats; the viseous, gelatinous,
ravenous army that feast on the dead
and the living. . . . Why shouldn’t
rats eat a de la Poer as a de la Poer
eats forbidden things? . . . The war
ate my boy, damn them all . . . and
the Yanks ate Carfax with flames and
burnt Grandsire Delapore and the
secret . . . No, no, I tell you, I am
not that dfflmon swineherd in the twi-
lit grotto ! It was not Edward Norrys’
fat face oa that flabby, fungous

thing! Who says I am a de la Poer?
He lived, but my boy died! . . .
Shall a Norrys hold the lands of a de
la Poer? . . . It’s voodoo, I tell
you . . . that spotted snake . . .
Curse you, Thornton, I ’ll teach you to
faint at what my family do! . . .
’Sblood, thou stinkard, I’ll learn ye
how to gust . . . wolde ye swynko
me thilke wys? . . . Magna Mater!
Magna Mater! . . . Atys . . . Dia
ad aghaidh ’s ad aodaun . . . agys
has dunach ort! Dhonas ’s dholas ort ,
agus leat-sa! . . . TJngl . . . nngl . . .
rrrlh . . . chchch. . . .

That is what they say I said when
they found me in the blackness after
three hours; found me crouching in
the blackness over the plump, half-
eaten body of Captain Norrys, with
my own cat leaping and tearing at
my throat. Now they have blown up
Exham Priory, taken my Nigger-Man
away from me, and shut me into this
barred room at Hanwell with fearful
whispers about my heredity and ex-
periences. Thornton is in the next
room, but they prevent me from talk-
ing to him. They are trying, too, to
suppress most of the facts concerning
the priory. When I speak of poor
Norrys they accuse me of a hideous
thing, but they must know that I did
not do it. They must know it was the
rats; the slithering, scurrying rats
whose scampering will never let me
sleep; the dsemon rats that race be-
hind the padding in this room and
beckon me down to greater horrors
than I have ever known ; the rats they
can never hear; the rats, the rats in
the walls!

854

WEIRD TALES

The Empty Road

( Continued from page 768)

the lights of the town twinkled
gayly. In its slip on the East River
Stanley thought he glimpsed the Cel-
tic, which was to take him to London
in the morning. Odd! He gasped,
elated with the wonder of it all.

“It’s chilly here,” said the host,
still resting his fingers on the table-
top. “We will return.”

As he spoke they were again in the
warm atmosphere of the dining-hall.

“And my reward if I join you?”
queried Stanley, still on his feet.

“Pow’er beyond your wildest
dreams, you fool!” shouted his host.
“An equal place with us in the realm
of free spirits. Why, we shall be as
the gods of old and rale the world as
Jupiter and his favorites did from
Parnassus. We can defy death. We
can be lords of life itself.”

For some reason Warden still hesi-
tated. Although the theory seemed
real enough, it was beyond his grasp
— just as the fourth dimension was.
It sounded magnificent and yet — and
yet — he wanted something tangible.

Brown seemed to read his mind.

“Oh, I see,” he nodded, his black
eyes sparkling evilly. “Doubting
Thomas wants something real — some-
thing alive and within his limits. You
will outgrow' that, but in the mean-
time — Mathy, see what you can do
for this youngster in the way of a
tangible reward for his rebellion.”

T he host sat down slowly and the
author rose in his stead. Again
his yellow, cigarette-stained fingers
writhed upon the back of his chair as
he smiled wolfishly upon the gather-
ing.

“I believe it would not be amiss,
after this wonderful evening,” he
breathed, scarcely audibly, “if we had
a little glimpse of pleasure and youth
and beauty. I have in mind a scene

from my new novel, The Otherworld-
ling, which I shall make real to you.”

He paused for effect, lit a long
cigarette which was speckled wuth
tiny spots of color, like a robin’s egg,
then continued reflectively, as his eyes
roved over his auditors.

‘ ‘ Let us say we are in a world vdiere
evolution has taken a different trend,
wdiere the flowers have developed
beautiful, semi-human bodies; where
a man can float in a poppy daze
without the unpleasant after-effects;
where beauty is exotic and supreme ;
where the ones we love are trans-
formed into beings we can possess
voluptuously and without restraint.”

His voice trailed off. His face
seemed to shrink and harden. Only
his widely spaced green eyes seemed
alive as they blinked slowly. With a
shock Stanley observed that their
pupils dilated vertically like those of
a cat.

As he stared the walls and table
seemed to dissolve and take new
forms. The night vanished. A great,
warm sun caressed him. With the
other guests he found himself wander-
ing in a bower of giant flowers. A
sweet, penetrating aroma, which
seemed to have been pressed from all
the. blooms that ever had opened,
sw'ept over them.

fie felt a touch on his elbow and
turned to behold the flower-women.
Strangely human they were, as they
swayed shoulder-high on their slender
stalks — nodding, bowing in the breeze,
smiling gayly the while like ladies in
some old, old cotillion. Their slender,
naked bodies glowed pinkly in the
sunshine, exquisite and beautiful.
Their scarlet lips seemed begging for
love. But their eyes were dead ! Now
and then one, stirred by the scented
zephyrs, would break from her moor-
ing, in the midst of what seemed a

WEIRD TALES

855

gigantic rose, and drift toward them,
arms outstretched.

‘ ‘ These are but the figments of my
imagination,” Stanley heard Ma-
thy’s voice crooning softly beside
him. ‘‘They have no being of their
own, and are built by me only for
your delectation. They are made for
love. Have pity upon them.”

•But the effect upon Stanley was not
what the author evidently had ex-
pected. Something within him seemed
fighting desperately for air. His old
horror of flowers swept over him.
This sticky sweetness reminded him
nauseatingly of the time when he had
been buried under the roses and had
fought the petals and thorns and en-
tangling roots for life. He panted
for breath. He wanted to scream, to
run wildly down this jewel-strewn
path.

“But I see Mr. Warden is not yet
satisfied,” the silken, stubborn voice
droned on. “Perhaps he dreams of
Jerry, who is not here. Oh, yes, we
know of Jerry. A charming maiden,
but puritanical. We will place her
here and see the effect. Look!”

And, as he turned a comer of the
path, Stanley beheld in the center of a
giant yellow rose the likeness of Jerry
swaying slowly toward him. As beau-
tiful as ever she was, yet changed,
as when one sees the face of a friend
in a nightmare, as if she had been
“crossed” with a flower by some
devil’s chemistry.

“Jerry!” he gasped.

Slowly her face turned toward him,
as gradually as when a sunflower
swings toward the sun.

He shrieked with horror. It was
the face of a saint in purgatory ; of a
soul in its death throes.

“Do not be foolish,” intoned Ma-
thy’s voice, into which had crept
a faint tinge of menace. “The silly
girl seems to take it hard, but she will
grow used to it and become happy
here in this garden, with the per-
fumes, the sun, the other flower
maidens — and you. She will be your

slave for as long as you wish. When
you tire of her she will — pass on.
Pluck your posy, my boy, and amuse
yourself till dawn.”

With a cry of anguish Stanley
hurled himself upon Mathy, whose
figure, apparently clothed in silks of
strange colors, he could see beside
him.

“You fiend! You devil!” he
snarled. ‘ ‘ Do with me what you will,
but leave Jerry untouched.”

His fingers closed upon the soft
throat of the author. There was a
crash of glassware and a thunder of
chairs overturned. -

Out of the comer of his eye he
could see that the dining-hall had
closed once more about them. He and
Mathy were writhing in a tangle of
dishes and napery while the other
guests crowded about, trying to tear
them apart.

“You fool! You utter fool!” he
heard Brown shouting. “You almost
killed them all. Get back, you fellows.
Let me beat some reason into his
young head. Damn me if I’ll have
rebellion among the rebels! It’s my
will that rules here. Back, I say!”

With a superhuman effort Stanley
scrambled to his feet. He had gone
berserk. Those crooked, vulpine faces
about him seemed birds of prey, ready
to tear his very soul to tatters.

With the strength of despair he
gripped the now conscious Mathy by
the heels and used the body as a flail
to sweep a path before him toward the
door.

He sensed that the others were
reaching skinny fingers toward him.
He saw Brown, all his suavity van-
ished, his face a mask of death, danc-
ing about, a rapier in his hand, trying
to get an opening.

And now, for the first time, he saw
what was wrong with his host’s feet.

The revelation drove him complete-
ly mad. He hurled the limp form of
Mathy through the doorway, which
had been blocked by the hunchback
butler and a group of other horrors.

856

WEIRD TALES

evidently from the servants ’ quarters,
and leaped after it.

A lithe form dropped on his back
from above, choking him, as he
crashed against the entrance door. He
heard the fellow’s skull crush against
the jamb.

By a miracle the door was un-
locked. He dashed into the street and
across it, toward his apartment. He
couldn’t resist turning to look back,
however, and saw the whole ghastly
crew piling through the door into the
dim light of dawn.

That look almost proved his undo-
ing, for some dim form gripped his
leg and tripped him. The mob was
on him, pulling at his clothes, scratch-
ing at his throat, and only prevented
from killing him by their numbers
and excitement.

Squirming and kicking he fought
his way across the dim street. If he
could gain his apartment ! If he
could call Jerry ! If he could reunite
the chain of the everyday world he
knew he would be safe.

At the door he fought them off a

moment and snatched his telephone.
* ‘ Humboldt 5225, ’ ’ he panted.

He heard the crash of the door as
his enemies broke it down. He felt
them upon him. The end had come !

Then, like a voice from heaven, he
heard Jerry on the wire.

“It’s Stanley, darling,” he
screamed. “Promise you won’t read
the letter from me that you will re-
ceive this morning, Jerry. Promise
inc that.”

A skinny claw clutched the receiver
but he held fast and as he fell beneath
a stunning blow on the head rolled
against the wall so they could not
reach the cord.

‘ ‘ What on earth is that noise ? ” he
dimly heard the girl answer. “Why
of course I won ’t read the letter, silly.
Are you ill? What makes you shout
so?”

He could not answer, but as his
senses reeled into darkness he felt the
pressure about him relax; the blows
upon his head cease. He had won
back to the world of everyday, where
demons in human form could not yet
approach.

THE CROW

By LIDA WILSON TURNER

A blue-black crow, like the raven of Poe,

Came one day to my patio,

And perched on top of the white-washed wall.
With a knowing look, he surveyed it all:

The pool where the water hyacinths grow,

The vine swung low, where I came to sew
In the early evening’s coral glow.

I saw by his face he deemed it no place
For a bird of his morbid, foreboding race ;

He flew to the brooding woods near by,

Where pines grow black on the sunset sky.

Then with a grimace, I tried to retrace
My rosebud pattern outlined with lace,

But a blue-black feather covered the space!

WEIRD TALES

857

The Moon of Skulls

( Continued from page 751)

ing when he sought to raise them to
his aching, throbbing head.

He lay in utter darkness but he
could not determine whether this was
absence of light, or whether he was
still blinded by the blow. He dazedly
collected his scattered faculties and
realized that he was lying on a damp
stone floor, shackled by wrist and
ardde with heavy iron chains which
Were rough and rusty to the touch.

How long he lay there, he never
kpew. The silence was broken only by
the drumming pulse in his own ach-
ing. head and the scamper and chat-
tering of rats. At last a red glow
sprang up in the darkness and grew
before his eyes. Framed in the grisly
radiance rose the sinister and sardonic
face of Nakari. Kane shook his head,
striving to rid himself of the illusion.
But the light grew and as his eyes
accustomed themselves to it, he saw
that it emanated from a torch borne
in the hand of the queen.

In the illumination he now saw that
he lay in a small dank cell whose
walls, ceiling and floor were of stone.
The heavy chains which held him
captive were made fast to metal rings
set deep in the wall. There was but
one door, which was apparently of
bronze.

Nakari set the torch in a niche near
the door, and coming forward, stood
over her captive, gazing down at him
in a manner rather speculating than
mocking.

“You are he who fought the men
on the cliff.” The remark was an
assertion rather than a question.
“They said you fell into the abyss —
did they lie? Did you bribe them to
lie? Or how did you escape? Are
you a magician and did you fly to the
bottom of the chasm and then fly to
my palace? Speak!

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I CHALLENGE

you that I will teach you, by mail in one leieon, the simplest,
ahorteet, method. Not telepathy. You can read one's mind to a
dot by only looking in the eye» of partner, chum, aweet-
heart, etc. Praised by New York, Boston, Montreal Police
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A. Henigman, Sta. E. P. 0. B. 85, Sec. WT- A, Montreal, Can,

858

WEIRD TALES

Kane remained silent. Nakari
cursed.

“Speak or I will have your eyes
tom out! I will cut your fingers off
and bum your feet!”

She kicked him viciously, but Kane
lay silent, his deep somber eyes boring
up into her face, until the feral gleam
faded from her eyes to be replaced by
an avid interest and wonder.

She seated herself on a stone bench,
resting her elbows on her knees and
her chin on her hands.

“I never saw a white man before,”
she said, “Are all white men like
you? Bah! That can not be! Most
men are fools, black or white. I know
most black men are fools, and white
men are not gods, as the river tribes
say — they are only men. I, who know
all the ancient mysteries, say they
are only men.

“But white men have strange mys-
teries too, they tell me — the wander-
ers of the river tribes, and Mara.
They have war clubs that make a
noise like thunder and kill afar off —
that thing which you held in your
right hand, was that one of those
clubs?”

Kane permitted himself a grim
smile.

“Nakari, if you know all mysteries,
how can I tell you aught that you
know not already?”

“How deep and cold and strange
your eyes are!” the queen said as if
he had not spoken. “How strange
your whole appearance is — and you
have the bearing of a king! You do
not fear me — I never met a man who
neither loved nor feared me. You
would never fear me, but you could
learn to love me. Look at me, white
man — am I not beautiful?”

“You are beautiful,” answered
Kane.

Nakari smiled and then frowned.
“The way you say that, it is no
compliment. You hate me, do you
not?”

“As a man hates a serpent, ’ ’ Kane
replied bluntly.

Nakari ’s eyes blazed with almost
insane fury. Her hands clenched
until the long nails sank into the
palms; then as quickly as her anger
had arisen, it ebbed away.

“You have the heart of a king,”
she said calmly, “else you would fear
me. Are you a king in your land?”

“I am only a landless wanderer.”

“You might be a king here,”
Nakari said slowly.

Kane laughed grimly. “Do you
offer me my life?”

“I offer you more than that!”
Kane’s eyes narrowed as the queen
leaned toward him, vibrant with sup-
pressed excitement. “White man,
what is it that you want more than
anything else in the world?”

“To take the white girl you call
Mara, and go.”

Nakari sank back with an impatient
exclamation,

“Yon can not have her; she is the
promised bride of the Master. Even
I could not save her, even if I wished.
Forget her. I will help you forget
her. Listen, white man, listen to the
words of Nakari, queen of Negari!
You say you are a landless man — I
will make you a king ! I will give you
the world for a toy!

“No, no! Keep silent until I have
finished,” she rushed on, her words
tumbling over each other in her eager-
ness. Her eyes blazed, her whole body
quivered with dynamic intensity. “I
have talked to travelers, to captives
and slaves, men from far countries. I
know that this land of mountains
and rivers and jungle is not all the
world. There are far-off nations and
cities, and kings and queens to be
crushed and broken.

“Negari is fading, her might is
crumbling, but a strong man beside
her queen might build it up again —
might restore all her vanishing glory.
Listen, white man ! Sit by me on the

WEIRD TALES

85 ?

throne of Negari ! Send afar to your
people for the thunder-clubs to arm
my warriors ! My nation is still lord
of central Africa; together we will
band the conquered tribes — call back
the days when the realm of ancient
Negari spanned the land from sea to
sea ! We will subjugate all the tribes of
the river, the plain and the sea-shore,
and instead of slaying them all, we
will make one mighty army of them!
And then, when all Africa is under
our heel, we will sweep forth upon the
world like a hungry lion to rend and
tear and destroy!”

Solomon’s brain reeled. Perhaps it
was the woman’s fierce magnetic per-
sonality, the dynamic power she in-
stilled in her fiery words, but at the
moment her wild plan seemed not at
all wild and impossible. Lurid and
chaotic visions flamed through the
Puritan ’s brain — Europe tom by civil
and religious strife, 'divided against
herself, betrayed by her rulers, totter-
ing — aye, Europe was in desperate
straits now, and might prove an easy
victim for some strong savage race of
conquerors. What man can say truth-
fully that in his heart there lurks not
a yearning for power and conquest?
For a moment the Devil sorely
tempted Solomon Kane; then before
his mind’s eye rose the wistful sad
face of Marylin Taferal, and Solomon
cursed.

‘‘Out on ye, daughter of Satan!
Avaunt! Am I a beast of the forest
to lead your black devils against mine
own race? Nay, no beast ever did so.
Begone ! If you wish my friendship,
set me free and let me go with the
girl.”

Nakari leaped like a tiger-cat to her
feet, her eyes flaming now with pas-
sionate fury. A dagger gleamed in
her hand and she raised it high above
Kane’s breast with a feline scream of
hate. A moment she hovered like a
shadow of death above him ; then her
arm sank and she laughed.

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WEIRD TALES

“Freedom? She will find her free-
dom when the Moon of Skulls leers
down on the black altar. As for you,
you shall rot in this dungeon. You
are a fool; Africa's greatest queen
has offered you her love and the
empire of the world — and you revile
her! You love the white girl, per-
haps? Until the Moon of Skulls she
is mine and I leave you to think about,
this: that she shall be punished as I
have punished her before — hung up
by her wrists, naked, and whipped
until she swoons!”

Nakari laughed as Kane tore sav-
agely at his shackles. She crossed to
the door, opened it, then hesitated and
turned back for another word.

“This is a foul place, white man,
and maybe you hate me the more for
chaining you here. Maybe in Nakari ’s
beautiful throneroom, with wealth
and luxury spread before you, you
will look upon her with more favor.
Very soon I shall send for you, but
first I will leave you here awhile to
reflect. Remember — love Nakari and
the kingdom of the world is yours;
hate her — this cell is your realm.”

The bronze door clanged sullenly,
but more hateful to the imprisoned
Englishman was the venomous, silvery
laugh of Nakari.

T ime passed slowly in the darkness.

After what seemed a long time the
door opened again, this time to admit
a huge black who brought food and a
sort of thin wine. Kane ate and drank
ravenously and afterward slept. The
strain of the last few days had worn
him greatly, mentally and physically,
but when he awoke he felt fresh and
strong.

Again the door opened and two
great black warriors entered. In the
light of the torches they bore, Kane
saw that they were giants, clad in
loin-cloths and ostrich plume head-
gear, and bearing long spears in their
hands.

‘ ‘ Nakari wishes you to come to her,
white man, ’ ’ was all they said, as they
took off his shackles. He arose,
exultant in even brief freedom, his
keen brain working fiercely for a way
of escape.

Evidently the fame of his prowess
had spread, for the two warriors
showed great respect for him. They
motioned him to precede them, and
Avalked carefully behind him, the
pohits of their spears boring into his
back. Though they were two to one,
and he was unarmed, they were tak-
ing no chances. The gazes they,
directed at him were full of awe and
suspicion, and Kane decided that
Nakari had told the truth when she
had said that he Avas the first white
man to come to Negari.

Down a long dark corridor they
■went, his captors guiding him with
light prods of their spears, up a nar-
row winding stair, down another
passageway, up another stair, and?
then they emerged into the vast maze
of gigantic pillars into which Kane
had first come. As they started down
this huge hall, Kane’s eyes suddenly
fell on a strange and fantastic pic-
ture painted on the Avail ahead of
him. His heart gave a sudden leap
as he recognized it. It Avas some
distance in front of him and he edged
imperceptibly toward the Avail until
he and his guards Avere Avalking along
very close to it. Noav he Avas almost
abreast of the picture and could even
make out the mark his dagger had
made upon it.

The warriors following Kane were
amazed to hear him gasp suddenly
like a man struck by a spear. He
wavered in his stride and began
clutching at the air for support. They
eyed each other doubtfully and
prodded him, but he cried out like a
dying man, and slowly crumpled to
the floor, Avhere he lay in a strange
imnatural position, one leg doubled
ba ck under him and one arm half sup-

WEIRD TALES

661

porting his lolling body. The blacks
looked at him fearfully. To all ap-
pearances he was dying, but there
was no wound upon him. They
threatened him with their spears but
he paid no heed. Then they lowered
their weapons uncertainly and one of
them bent over him.

Then it happened. The instant the
black stooped forward, Kane came up
like a steel spring released. His right
fist following his motion curved up
from his hip in a whistling half -circle
and crashed against the black giant’s
jaw. Delivered with all the power of
arm and shoulder, propelled by the
upthrust of the powerful legs as Kane
straightened, the blow was like that
of a slung-shot. The negro slumped
to the floor, unconscious before his
knees gave way.

The other warrior plunged forward
with a bellow, but even as his victim
fell, Kane twisted aside and his
frantic hand found the secret spring
in the painting and pressed. All
happened in the breath of a second.
Quick as the warrior was, Kane was
quicker, for he moved with the
dynamic speed of a famished wolf.
For an instant the falling body of the
senseless black hindered the other
warrior’s thrust, and in that instant
Kane felt the hidden door give way.
From the comer of his eye he saw a
long gleam of steel shooting for his
heart. He twisted about and hurled
himself against the door, vanishing
through it even as the stabbing spear
slit the skin on his shoulder.

To the dazed and bewildered war-
rior, who stood with weapon up-
raised for another thrust, it seemed
as if the white man had simply van-
ished through a solid wall, for only a
fantastic picture met his gaze and
this did not give to his efforts.

The grim glories and hideous splendors of
forgotten Atlantis are vividly painted in the riot
of death which brings this story to a conclusion
in next month’s WEIRD TALE8.

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862

WEIRD TALES

Haunted Hands

( Continued from page 761 )

until she had fallen asleep and then
had crept up to her soft throat.

“On and on that wild song of tri-
umph played, whispering its ghastly
tale to me, hour after hour until,
numb with exhaustion, I managed to
tear myself away from the piano. I
did not look at her. I knew only too
well what had happened. I rushed
out into the street, brought you
gentlemen here, and the rest you
know.

“I suppose you will want to place
me under arrest, now, charge me
with murder and go through with
all the formality of the law. Do so,
if you wish. It matters very little
what you do with me. The end is
only a matter of a few hours at best.
Very soon, now, I must sleep. And
when I sleep again, he will conquer.
That is one of the things he told me
through that hellish music last night.

“And I am anxious to have it over
with, to go to her out there in the
dark and stand beside her when she
faces him and his followers from the
Pit. And, somehow, I know that, out
there, we shall win. She said that
love is the greatest power in the uni-
verse — that no power of hell could
overcome a love like oui’s. And I
believe ! Yes, yes, I am quite anxious
to have it over with and go to her
out there where she is facing him.”

The man broke off and stared al-
most placidly into the gray dawn
that was breaking through the win-
dows. The captain of detectives blew
his nose quite ostentatiously when he
produced his handkerchief, but Car-
digan and the other patrolman were
frankly wiping their eyes.

“You poor devil !” It was the doc-
tor who spoke. “And all the time
you never thought of the one simple
thing that would have saved you.
Ropes, man! And that’s what we’ll

STATEMENT OF THE OWNERSHIP, MAN-

AGEMENT, CIRCULATION, ETC., RE-
QUIRED BT THE ACT OF CONGRESS
OF AUGUST 24, 1912,

Of Weird Tales, published monthly at Indlonap*
olis, Indiana, for April 1, 1930.

State of Illinois 1
County of Cook i

Before me, a notary public in and for the State
and county aforesaid, personally appeared Wm.
R. Sp render, who, having been duly sworn accord-
ing to law, deposes and says that he is the Busi-
ness Manager of the Weird Tales and that the
following is, to the best of his knowledge and
belief, a true statement of the ownership, man-
agement (and if a daily paper, the circulation)*
etc., of the aforesaid publication for the date
shown in the above caption required by the Act
of August 24, 1912, embodied in section 411, Postal
Laws and Regulations, printed on the reverse of
this form, to wit:

1. That the names and addresses of the pub-
lisher, editor, managing editor, and business
manager are:

Publisher — Popular Fiction Publishing Company*
2457 E. Washington St., Indianapolis, Ind.

Editor — Farnsworth Wright, 840 N. Michigan
Ave., Chicago, 111.

Managing Editor — None.

Business Manager — William R. Sprenger, . £40
N. Michigan Ave., Chicago, 111.

S. That the owner is: (If owned by a corpora-
tion, its name and address must be stated and
also immediately thereunder the names and ad-
dresses of stockholders owning or holding one
per cent or more of total amount of stock. If
not owned by a corporation, the names and
addresses of the individual owners must, be
given. If owned by a firm, company, or other
unincorporated concern, its name and address,
as well as those of each Individual member
must be given.)

Popular Fiction Publishing Company, 2457 /H.
"Washington St., Indianapolis, Ind. *

Wm. R. Sprenger, 840 N. Michigan Ave.,
Chicago, Illinois.

Farnsworth Wright. 840 N. Michigan Ave.,
Chicago, Illinois.

George M. Cornelius, 2457 E. Washington
St., Indianapolis, Indiana.

George H. Cornelius, 2457 E. Washington St.,
Indianapolis, Indiana.

P. W. Cornelius. 2457 E. Washington St., In-
dianapolis, Indiana,

3. That the known bondholders, mortgagees*
and other security holders owning or holding I
per cent or more of total amount of bonds, morU
gages, or other securities are: (If there are none,
eo state). None.

4. That the two paragraphs next above, giving
the names of the owners, stockholders, and secu-
rity holders, if any, contain not only the list
of stockholders and security holders as they ap-
pear upon the books of the company, but also,
in cases where the stockholder or security holder
appears upon the books of the company as trustee
or in any other fiduciary relation, the name of
the person or corporation for whom such trustee
is acting, is given ; also that the said two para-
graphs contain statements embracing affiant’s full
knowledge and belief as to the circumstances and
conditions under which stockholders and security
holders who do not appear upon the books of the
company as trustees, hold stock and securities in
a capacity other than that of a bona fide owner ;
and this affiant has no reason to believe that any
other person, association, or corporation has any
interest, direct or indirect, in the said stock,
bonds, or other securities than as so stated by him.

5. That the average number of copies of each

issue of this publication sold or distributed,
through the mails or otherwise, to paid subscrib-
ers during the six months preceding the date
shown above is. (This information is re-

quired from daily publications only.)

WM. R. SPRENGER,
Business Manager.

Sworn to and subscribed before me this 1st day
of April, 1930. D. G. WIELAND,

[SEAL] Notary Public.

My commission expires December 11, 1933.

WEIRD TALES

863

do with you now. Down at the sta-
tion house we’ll tie your hands to a
bunk — even chain them if it will
make you feel any better — and you
can sleep for a week if you like.
After that, you ’ll have to go through
a trial, of course, but it will be very
brief. A mere formality. In next to
no time, you’ll be out of it and in a
comfortable sanitarium where you
can receive treatment. And there’s
always hope, young man, always
hope. Can’t make any promises, of
course — unusually severe case of hal-
lucinations, induced by severe men-
tal shock — but there’s always hope.
Yes, certainly there’s always hope.”

He cleared his throat briskly and
fingered the leaves of his notebook.
The man shook his head gently.

“You simply don’t know him. You
could set these hands into a concrete
wall and still they would do his bid-
ding. If — if you had heard them
flaying a few hours ago, you would
understand. . . .”

Tt was quite early the next after-

noon when Dr. Hughes entered
the station house — much earlier than
his round of duties called for. Car-
digan was bending over a newspaper
as he entered.

“Well, Cardigan,” the doctor
asked, “how is our young man to-
day?”

: Cardigan looked up from the news-
paper with bewilderment written
large upon his face.

“Well — ’tis a strange thing that
has happened, Doctor. The lad is
dead. You remember how we hand-
cuffed his hands to the sides of his
bunk, and, besides that, set that
young rookie to watch beside him?
Well, the rookie reports that about
ten o’clock he got up and went to
the end of the cell corridor for a
drink of water. He swears that he
was not gone more than three and a
half or four minutes at the most,
but when he got back, the lad was

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864

WEIRD TALES

NEXT MONTH

The

BRIDE of DEWER

By SEABURY QUINN

A n eery novelette, brimful of
horror and blood-freezing situ-
ations. Old Dewer, the Huntsman
of the North, famed in Old English
legend, rides again through this
fascinating story; and the hideous
results of his ride are terror and
grisly panic. One of the weirdest
stories Seabury Quinn has ever
written.

A n eldritch tale indeed is this
story of the little French
occultist and scientist, Jules de
Grandin. If you have not *yet
made the acquaintance of this
fascinating fictional character —
ghost-breaker and phantom-fighter,
quick-tempered and vain, yet
wholly lovable — then you have a
rare treat in store. Meet the mer-
curial Frenchman in this story,
which will be printed complete in
the

July issue of

WEIRD TALES

On Sale June 1st

Clip and Mail this coupon today/

WEIRD TAXES
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Chicago* 111.

Enclosed find $1 for special 5 months sub*
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strangled to death. 'And, Holy
Mother, but you ought to see the
lad’s throat, sir ! It’s mangled worse
than hers, sir. And” — Cardigan
cleared his throat nervously — “and —
well, the rookie says, sir, that the
lad’s hands were still moving al-
though the lad himself was lying per-
fectly still. ’Tis a strange business,
indeed, Doctor, and would you be
having a look at this, sir?”

He handed the doctor the news-
paper he had been reading and
pointed to a small item at the bottom
of the page. It was a single para-
graph and was dated the day before :

Turgot, N. Y., August 11, 19 — . A curi-
ous matter occurred here, today, where thi
old Turgot cemetery is being moved to make
way for the new dam. One of the graves
opened was that of Wladimir Tchianski, one
of the greatest pianists of his day. His
skeleton was found to be in perfect condi-
tion except for the bones of the hands.
Prom the wrists down, the bones of both
hands were missing and in their place was
a peculiar green slime which emitted a
powerful stench when the grave was opened.
Local authorities think it the result of some
little known disease and are attempting to
analyze the green slime. So far their
efforts have met with no success.

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1V/ITH back to the wall he watched

VV them. They were waiting for him to col-
lapse before they killed him. He had not slept,
he had not eaten— he could barely breathe. He
had tended theseman-eatingblacksintheirmis-
ery and now this fiendish attack was his reward.

Suddenly from nowhere appeared this rosy
cheeked, clear-eyed girl to help defend him.
Alone on this far-off South Sea island they
fought the two hundred !

What strange trick of fate could have driven this
young American to cast his lot among savages? Who
was this mysterious girl? How came she there? What
was the fate of these two strangely assorted com-
panions?

Let Jack London tell you theanswerto this
and a hundred other thrilling, gripping
adventures and amazing romances in the

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IT IS NOT

TOO LATE

to read one of the most popular stories that
has been printed in this magazine to date.
Through popular demand we have published
a cloth-bound edition of “The Moon Terror,”
by A. ft. Birch, to fulfill the wishes of those
who were not fortunate enough to read this
startling story when it appeared serially in
the early issues of Weird Tales.

If you haven’t
read this book of
shuddery horror
and utter weird-
ness we know you
have missed some-
thing that is really
worth while.

This hook is
beautifully hound
in rieh blue cloth
with attractive or-
ange-colored jack-
et. It will make a
valuable addition
to vour library.

EAD the thrilling: adventures
of Dr. Ferdinand Gresham, the

.eminent American astronomer,

in his encounters with Kwo-Sung-
tao, high priest of the Seuen-H’sin
(the Sect of Two Moons). The
Seuen-H’sin are the sorcerers of
China, and the most murderously
diabolical breed of human beings on this earth. Each
turn of the page increases the suspense when you fol-
low Dr. Gresham to take part in the hellish ceremonies
in the Temple of the Moon God — when he crosses the
Mountains of Fear — half starves on the dead plains of
Dzunsz’chuen — swims the River of Death — sleeps in the
Caves of Nganhwiu. where the hot winds never cease
and the dead light their campfires on their journey to
Nirvana. Here is a story that will thrill you.

Send for this fascinating book at once. Special pub-
lishers’ price $1.50 postpaid.

Book Dept. M-26,

WEIRD TALES,

840 N. Michigan Ave.,

Chicago, Illinois

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Full text of "Weird Tales v15 n06 [1930-06]"

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